Web Posters Launch Anti-Bush 'Google Bomb'

Dec. 8 -- President Bush is a miserable failure.

How much one agrees or disagrees with that statement is a matter of personal opinion. But according to the Internet's most popular search engine, it is cold, hard fact.

Go ahead, try it.

Type in "miserable failure" on the Google Web site and the first Web link most likely to show up will take you directly to the official online biography for the current occupant of the Oval Office. (The trick will also sometimes work on Yahoo! and other search engines.)

Has Google gone gaga for Richard Gephardt, the Democratic presidential candidate who has often used the term to describe Bush's policies? Should Bush supporters begin rallying against a vast, online left-wing conspiracy?

Not really.

"This is not a political statement from Google, but rather a reflection of a recent Web phenomenon," says a spokesman for Google in Mountain View, Calif. "In this case, a select group of Web masters used the words [miserable failure] to describe and link to George Bush's Web site."

In other words: the president has just been the latest victim of a "Google bomb," a crafty but simple manipulation of how the well-known online search engine works.

How to Make a ‘Google Bomb’

Google uses a technique that searches not just for words on a Web page, but also the words or terms used to link to that page.

For example, if another Web site links to this story using the term "shiny penny," Google catalogs this page along with other Web pages that actually use those words in the context of the subject. If gangs of other Web sites start using the exact same term, eventually this page will top the result lists for Web users looking for information about bright coins.

Google bombs have been around since 2001, when one Adam Mathes discovered and used the loophole to good-naturedly mock a friend as a "talentless hack."