Comments on: Google Gives Bush a Pass http://www.pointedstick.net/colter/2007/01/30/553/ the further adventures of the luckiest bastard you ever saw Sat, 28 Jan 2012 22:45:03 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: heath http://www.pointedstick.net/colter/2007/01/30/553/comment-page-1/#comment-5776 heath Tue, 30 Jan 2007 23:19:55 +0000 http://www.pointedstick.net/colter/journal/2007/01/30/553/#comment-5776 Googlebombing was a neat hack on a complex system, so I can see being a bit disappointed that it doesn't work anymore. But look at it from Google's perspective: they want to return relevant results to searches so they can make money off ad revenue. Googlebombs are by definition not relevant search results, so eventually they had to go, either through special cases or by tweaking the search algorithm. Changing the search algorithm is more appealing, because it's probably simpler and more flexible than implementing a system to handle every special case. Also note that so long as Googlebombs worked, Google was having to put up with both ends of the political spectrum accusing them of bias, and that certainly isn't any fun. Finally, nobody's right to free expression through linking has been infringed here. You can still create links using whatever keywords you want; Google just doesn't reward you for it anymore. Googlebombing was a neat hack on a complex system, so I can see being a bit disappointed that it doesn’t work anymore. But look at it from Google’s perspective: they want to return relevant results to searches so they can make money off ad revenue. Googlebombs are by definition not relevant search results, so eventually they had to go, either through special cases or by tweaking the search algorithm. Changing the search algorithm is more appealing, because it’s probably simpler and more flexible than implementing a system to handle every special case.

Also note that so long as Googlebombs worked, Google was having to put up with both ends of the political spectrum accusing them of bias, and that certainly isn’t any fun.

Finally, nobody’s right to free expression through linking has been infringed here. You can still create links using whatever keywords you want; Google just doesn’t reward you for it anymore.

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