Declare peace on Google, goodwill toward searchers

By Molly Wood (3/29/02)

Oh, Google. How do we love thee? Let me Google the ways. The gold-standard search engine that could, colorful Google charms the stodgiest with its ever-relevant logo and warms cynical hearts with its altruistic guiding principles (No. 6: You can make money without doing evil). Its name has become a verb, its IE toolbar an indispensable fixture, and, of course, its search results a treasure trove of trivia and knowledge. But you already know all that.

Games Google plays

You may not know this: Google is under attack. It's true, our beloved search engine could become the Web's own Velveteen Rabbit, worn and changed forever by the weight of our adoration. The Web's subversive (I mean that in a good way!) little community of bloggers, or weblog editors, just can't leave the searching gem alone. Bored and too-savvy Web geeks have penetrated Google's technology and used their knowledge and a ravenous hunger for entertainment to create seemingly innocent Google games.

One such game has only a mild impact. Known as Googlewhacking, the game's afoot when you pair two search terms so obscure that they produce only one search result. (You'd think animatronics minutiae would work--but, no. Four results.) Previously successful whacks include fetishized armadillo, insolvent pachyderms, and, my personal favorite, flibbertigibbit boogers. The net effect? As documented whacks, the above search terms now produce more than one result. In fact, by listing them here, I've mucked up the works even further. See? Google's already corrupted. But it gets worse.

Is that a Google Bomb in your pocket?

Google games took a potentially nefarious turn about a year ago, when a clever blogger named Adam Mathes discovered a way to manipulate Google's search results. He determined that, as an exceptionally smart search engine, Google often returns results based on related--not exact--search terms. For example, if your blog and many, many others always use the term jailbird when referring to a certain captain of industry, over time, the search term jailbird will return results such as these.

Mathes entreated bloggers everywhere to link the words talentless hack to the Web site of his, uh, friend, Andy Pressman. It worked. Within months, Pressman's site became the No. 1 search result for talentless hack. Lucky him. And Mathes kindly coined an appropriate term for his assault: Google Bombing. Others took up the call, creating bombs as ego boosts or for amusement or political reasons (one hoped to draw attention to the kidnapping of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl).

Better business bombing

Good intentions aside, there's money to be made here, and I don't like it. If, say, you paid enough bloggers to link to your business often enough, why, Google could end up as your inadvertent sponsor. Alas, some bloggers are more than willing to oblige. For example, a guy named Tony Pierce recently auctioned off link space on his blog. But wait, it gets even worse.

Many of you probably read that Google removed links to a Web site critical of the Church of Scientology after the church complained about the negative comments, then reinstated the links after public outcry. But most of you don't know that the offending site came to the church's attention after a concerted bombing campaign.

Do I blame Google for caving in to the church's demands? You bet. But you'd better believe I blame the mad bombers, too. They claim they were only counteracting the Scientologists' own manipulation of search site results, but the Google bombers are simply bathing in the same scum. (Google--at least before the Scientology bombast--benevolently announced that it's keeping an eye on would-be search terrorists but believes them incapable of serious damage.)

Mostly, I find it ironic that Google, of all sites--so beloved by geeks, so representative of one of the good things on the Net, the Southwest Airlines of search sites--could find its demise in our unwelcome attention. Bloggers and geeks, in our endless search for fun, amusement, and technological nooks and crannies, may have just shown the enemy the Next Big Thing. Blogs, not bombs, people. Declare peace on Google!