Bush Gets Bombed

Google appoints Bush as No1 'miserable failure'

12th December 2003

The world's most popularly used search engine, Google, is quite clear about it. If you type the phrase 'miserable failure' into the search entry and press 'go' the No 1 selection comes up as:

"Biography of President George W. Bush Home > President > Biography President George W. Bush En Español.

George W. Bush is the 43rd President of the United States. He ... Description: Biography of the president from the official White House web site.

Category: Kids and Teens > School Time > ... > Bush, George Walker www.whitehouse.gov/president/gwbbio.html - 29k - Cached - Similar pages"

* It is to be noted that the biography in question is the official biog on the White House website and the search entry has been engineered by a phenomenon called 'Google bombing'.

Search engine robots detect links from other websites and judge those links to be an indication of the popularity of a web location. This popularity is an important criterion in determining the priority of a web location in the list of Search engine web 'finds'. If enough web site owners and bloggers create links to Bush's White House biography using the words 'miserable failure', then the search engine will associate the web biography with the search phrase It is of course only a matter of time before the Bush administration threatens to bomb Google's Californian offices if the search engine doesn't censor its own robots but until then enjoy the truth whilst it lasts. Both Google and the White House have refused to comment.