Bellevue Man Behind Bush Google Prank

Komonews4 ^ | 1/22/04 | Komo News 4

[cmsgop]

Bellevue Man Behind Bush Google Prank

January 22, 2004

By KOMO Staff & News Services

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BELLEVUE - A Bellevue computer programmer is taking credit for a stunt that's making waves in the Internet world.

The 'Google bomb', as it's called, leads searchers of the phrase "miserable failure" on Google.com to an unexpected result: the official White House biography of President George Bush.

"I'm actually surprised how easy it was to do," George Johnston told the New York Times. "It took about 6 weeks to get Bush's biography as the No. 1 result. I had no idea when I'd get people all over the world involved.

Google bombing has quickly become an armchair sport among those who have a message to broadcast and perhaps a bit too much time on their hands. Unlike hacking into sites, Google bombing is a group sport, taking advantage of the Web-indexing innovation that led Google to search-engine supremacy.

You can read the full article, including the specifics of how he pulled it off, in our newspaper partner, the King County Journal.

And it's not just Bush who's fallen victim to the Google bomb. No. 2 on the Google search list is former President Jimmy Carter's White House biography.

[cmsgop]

Figures that loser would live 15 min away from me....

[cmsgop]

Ping

[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

Any ideas, oh Practical Joke Master?

[SW6906]

Cute. Someone with WAY too much time on his hands.

[Jackson Brown]

With Google, Bush is still number 1 and Carter 2 -- but -- Michael Moore and Hillary are gaining fast at number 3 and 4.

On AOL search Michael Moore is number 1, Jimmy Carter is number 2 and Hillary number 3.

[Sofa King]

How does one contribute to this?

[XHogPilot]

Google.com of "miserable failure" now yields Michael Moore as #1.

[anniegetyourgun]

No...all those libs are #2....if you know what I mean...

[anniegetyourgun]

Don't feel bad...he's probably doing it on MS time.

[Jackson Brown]

I think you have to have some kind of web site and put a link to what page you want to link to the words "miserable failure". IOW, have the words miserable failure as the link to click to take you to Hillery's home page. (or whom ever).

I imagine even free vanity web sites thru one's ISP would do.

[Senator Pardek]

Guess again!

[happydogdesign]

From Brokennewz.com

[Ol' Dan Tucker]

Type 'Dan Tucker' (without the quotes) into Google. :D

[KangarooJacqui]

Am I the only one here thinking that guy badly needs a hobby (or a girlfriend)?

[Prodigal Son]

If everybody puts a link from the words miserable failure to either the Michael Moore site or the Hillary site (you can see these by googling 'miserable failure) on their member pages you can increase their rankings.

[HardStarboard]

>>>Am I the only one here thinking that guy badly needs a hobby (or a girlfriend)? <<<

Nah, he needs his teeth brushed with a winch handle.

[Sofa King]

Kind of like this?

[JoJo Gunn]

Here's one way of doing it.

Michael miserable failureMoore

[XHogPilot]

How does one contribute to this?

Here's a freerepublic link, and an outside link on how to do it.

I think it goes something like this...

• Create your own website
• On your new website, add a link to the site you want to "google bomb"
• Name this linked site "miserable failure".
• Example, add this link to your site- http://www.michaelmoore.com and name it miserable failure
• Add your new site's URL to Google's search engine at http://www.google.com/addurl.html
• Google reads it, including your link to miserable failure.
• Get your friends/co-conspirators to do the same on their websites.

  The rest is, as they say, is internet history.

[XHogPilot]

If everybody puts a link from the words miserable failure to either the Michael Moore site or the Hillary site

Can I do both of them?