Ok. Now listen closely:
Go to Google. Type the word “failure” into the search window. Initiate the search and see what comes up. Do it soon, as I don’t know how long this will last.
-cvj
(Thanks Krzysztof!)
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September 13th, 2005 at 5:05 pm
I noticed that this morning. Just for fun, on Yahoo the number two result is the biography of GW bush, the official one, from the white house. Strange.
September 13th, 2005 at 5:45 pm
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the W biography does not contain the word “failure”, or at least my browser couldn’t find it. I believe somebody in the search engine community gets his frustration out this way. Subtle, but clever.
September 13th, 2005 at 5:51 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_bomb
September 13th, 2005 at 5:51 pm
OK, got it, I was confused by the fact that google seems to be down.
The scheme is clever, I found out how it is done by (what else?) googling “google failure”. It is supposed to work best with the expression “miserable failure”, actually.
Now back to my regularly scheduled errands…
September 13th, 2005 at 6:03 pm
Hehe. Funny. Try do a “French Military Victories” search in google too. I wonder if it is the same guy behind this one.
Google generally doesn’t stop parody pages like this so I doubt it’ll go down.
September 13th, 2005 at 6:11 pm
This isn’t new, it started a few years ago. The specific targetted phrase was “miserable failure”, but I’m sure it was just that this was sucessful enough that failure now gets it too. Bjorn, as you’ll see from the wikipedia article, it’s not the search community, it’s random people linking that phrase to that page in their websites or blogs.
September 13th, 2005 at 7:07 pm
The first googlebomb was ‘talentless hack’, I think, and it was done as an experiment and as a joke. Surprised that google haven’t reformed their ordering procedures to stop it.
As I understand it, all you need to do is get a lot of bloggers to link to a particular page using the phrase in question (the phrase doesn’t have to be in the page). ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ was another one, if I recall right.
September 13th, 2005 at 9:24 pm
That he’s a miserable failure? Didn’t we already know that?
“We’ll stand down when the voters stand up.” is my motto.
September 13th, 2005 at 9:28 pm
Oh, so I was supposed to link the words failure or miserable failure ? I see….
-cvj
September 13th, 2005 at 9:36 pm
Risa, you are right. I told this story to a friend, who responded along the same lines as your comment, which I just read. I was not aware that “miserable failure” has been so popular as a link to the biography in the past. So I start to believe that this is a collaborative effect rather than the making of a single person. But it was such a compassionate idea…
September 13th, 2005 at 11:03 pm
You can do this with a number of phrases…just of the top of my head “worst president ever” turns it up as well. cute indeed.
September 14th, 2005 at 1:36 am
‘Miserable failure’ links to Bush
BBC: 7 December, 2003
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3298443.stm
September 14th, 2005 at 4:35 am
Yeah there have been many fine Google hours (which is no doubt why they leave the system as it is – it makes them look edgey and cool). being English, my favourite is on google.co.uk, type in liar:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=liar&btnG=Google+Search&meta=
September 14th, 2005 at 10:45 am
Wow, nothing gets by you scientists…
September 14th, 2005 at 11:12 am
This just in: Google has just introduced its BlogSearch beta site. Check out the FAQ.
(I haven’t tried using it to search for “failure”.)
September 14th, 2005 at 1:23 pm
Thanks for all the links guys…. I had no idea that this was going on…it’s both interesting and hilarious.
(And it makes not one bit of difference whether it is “new” or not, you clever so-ahead-of-the-curve commenters. I don’t think there’s anything about being a “breaking news” service in our about page. It was new to me and I thought I’d share it with others who did not know about it.)
Cheers,
-cvj
September 14th, 2005 at 4:44 pm
Amazing – this is a white house DOT gov website.
Sadly, note the two listed universities – Yale and Harvard.
September 14th, 2005 at 10:23 pm
oh, hilarious! thx – after a long day, I needed the laugh!
September 15th, 2005 at 9:01 am
zing! aren’t we clever! It’s funny cause George W. is a failure! oh my, this is comedy. Let’s give ourselves a collective pat on the back.
September 20th, 2005 at 1:18 am
Anyone remember when Googling “weapons of mass destruction” gave that pseudo internet explorer page? That was a fun one circulating around the dorms a few years ago. I found it again, thanks to wikipedia: weapons of mass destruction
September 20th, 2005 at 1:48 am
Brilliant! I’d forgotten about that one! I especially love the part about “If you are an Old European Country….”
Thanks!
-cvj