Google Search: Miserable Failure

[apollo2011]

Incase you haven't heard:

 

A bunch of pranksters on the Net have rigged Google.

If you search Google on "Miserable Failure" and clikc the "I'm Feeling Lucky" Button, then it will take you directly to George W. Bush's Bio on whitehouse.gov. This comes after Dick Gephardt called Bush a Miserable Failure.

[Sayonara]

The "I'm feeling lucky" button just gives you the first result returned for the search phrase.

 

The whitehouse.gov article just happens to be ranked highest for that phrase.

 

There is no trickery involved, I'm fairly sure of that. Nobody outside the company even knows how all of google's ranking and sorting works.

[apollo2011]

No. Google counts the amount of times people go to the same page and puts them in order based on that rating.

 

I think this article will help:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3298443.stm

 

For more articles:

http://news.google.com/news?num=100&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&newwindow=1&edition=us&q=Miserable+Failure+on+Google&spell=1

[Dave]

That's been done before, but it's quite funny nevertheless.

[apollo2011]

Yeah, I think it has been done so much it now has its own name. They call this kind of trickery "Google bombing"

[Sayonara]

That's only a temporary shift in ranking - the "WOMD 404" page was the funniest I've seen.

 

The method can't be used to permanently "fix" the rankings though, more's the pity.

[apollo2011]

Yeah. I saw the WOMD one too. LOL