Google bombs
I don't like Google bombs. I suppose that's because I see Google more as a shared resource than a system to be hacked. People use Google because it delivers good search results. Google bombers, link farmers, keyword stuffers and the like all decrease the quality of those results.
Manipulating Google's results to serve some ostensibly noble political purpose (in this case, exposing the shoddy practices of Verisign) is still manipulation. And it's more of an attack on Google than it is on Verisign.
I think there's an assumption that Google bombing produces no collateral damage--i.e., the Verisign bomb only affects people who search for "Verisign." But that's not true; it affects the whole system since Google has to suppress or block links from certain web sites to maintain reasonable quality in their search results. And I don't think we want Google to demote the relevance of blogs (or even particular blog authors) when it calculates page rankings.
(I doubt that the Verisign bomb is particularly effective, either. Better to promote an ethical registrar by creating links to their site using terms like "domains" and "domain registration." FYI, Verisign is currently the top result on Google for "domain registration.")
Sadly, though, the meme is out of the...well, whatever it is that holds memes, and Google bombing will proliferate. And so the good folks at Google, who just want to give us reliable search results, will have to find ways to separate links made with integrity from links made to exploit their PageRank algorithms.
And that's a shame. As much as I enjoy a little monkeywrenching and creative anarchy, Google and its users ultimately pay the price.
Finally, a few ways to get back at Verisign:
Manipulating Google's results to serve some ostensibly noble political purpose (in this case, exposing the shoddy practices of Verisign) is still manipulation. And it's more of an attack on Google than it is on Verisign.
I think there's an assumption that Google bombing produces no collateral damage--i.e., the Verisign bomb only affects people who search for "Verisign." But that's not true; it affects the whole system since Google has to suppress or block links from certain web sites to maintain reasonable quality in their search results. And I don't think we want Google to demote the relevance of blogs (or even particular blog authors) when it calculates page rankings.
(I doubt that the Verisign bomb is particularly effective, either. Better to promote an ethical registrar by creating links to their site using terms like "domains" and "domain registration." FYI, Verisign is currently the top result on Google for "domain registration.")
Sadly, though, the meme is out of the...well, whatever it is that holds memes, and Google bombing will proliferate. And so the good folks at Google, who just want to give us reliable search results, will have to find ways to separate links made with integrity from links made to exploit their PageRank algorithms.
And that's a shame. As much as I enjoy a little monkeywrenching and creative anarchy, Google and its users ultimately pay the price.
Finally, a few ways to get back at Verisign:
- Register your domains with another registrar
- Buy ads (on Google!) to direct people to your preferred "Verisign sucks" page
- Encourage your company to switch to another registrar (My organization has about 100 domains registered through NetSol and I plan on consolidating them with another registrar in the next year or so. This isn't strictly due to Verisign's arrogance; I need a registrar that can handle .ca domains as well as .com, etc.)
- Link to a registrar with good customer service, solid policies against domain jacking and a track record of enforcing those policies
Posted by Gene Smith on May 21, 2002
