The "failure" Googlebomb is not something new

Jun 5, 2007 19:06 GMT  ·  By

The "failure" Googlebomb is surely the most famous prank ever made to the best search engine on the Internet because it appeared for multiple times although the Mountain View company tried to stop it. Some time ago, the search giant sustained that Google was working on a powerful technology to stop all the bombs even before they happen. Meanwhile, other malicious attempts were trying to create Googlebombs, the "failure" one appearing a few weeks ago. If you didn't know, a simple search for "failure" or for "miserable failure" shows unexpected results: the top page redirects the users to the White House and to President Bush.

As we know, the Googlebombs can be done with ease because the search technology determines the position on the Google index by analyzing the number of pages with links to a certain website. This way, any attacker that wants to influence the Google search results can simply do this by adding link to a certain fake page on numerous other websites. Although the "failure" Googlebomb was removed a long time ago, it appeared again, the Google representatives sustaining that they don't affect the quality of the search engine.

"We don't condone the practice of googlebombing, or any other action that seeks to affect the integrity of our search results, but we're also reluctant to alter our results by hand in order to prevent such items from showing up. Pranks like this may be distracting to some, but they don't affect the overall quality of our search service, whose objectivity, as always, remains the core of our mission," Marissa Mayer, Director of Consumer Web Products, said today.

Most of the Googlebombs are targeting political figures such as presidents and senators and can appear on many other search engines than Google. However, the most affected technology belongs to the Mountain View company until the search giant releases the long-awaited anti-bomb solution.