Google Bombing--A New Political Campaign Technique
57Manipulating Google Data in Political Campaigns
"Liberals seek high tech edge on G.O.P. If things go as planned for liberal bloggers in the next few weeks, searching Google for 'John Kyl," the Republican senator from Arizona now running for re-election, will produce high among the returns a link to an April 13 article from the Phoenix New Times, an alternative weekly.
"Mr. Kyl 'has spent his time in Washington kowtowing to the Bush administration and the radical right,' the article suggests, 'very often to the detriment of Arizonans.'"
[NY Times 10-26 article linked below.]
New Campaign Tactic: Manipulating Google Data
Gaming the Search Engine, in a Political Season by Tom Zeller, Jr.
- Gaming the Search Engine
A Google bomb--which some Web gurus have suggested is perhaps better called a link bomb, in that it affects most search engines--has typically been thought of something between a prank and a form of protest.
Slate Report on Googlebombing Results in Midterm Elections
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That is interesting. While it is possible to Google bomb, it takes a lot of planning. A strong component to the Google search engine algorithm is links that point from site A to site B. So if enough people use the words "John Kyl" in the anchor text and point to the article, it should show up high on Google searches for the term. However, Google does have filters in place that catch unusually high link growth. The trick is to do it just right. It's probably better to have a few high quality links vs tons of them.
Robin says:
3 years ago
interesting....I hadn't thought of this kind of campaigning.