Blogger launches 'Google bomb' at McCain

[RadioPatrol]

Blogger launches 'Google bomb' at McCain
Effort aims to boost Google rankings of negative news stories about Sen. John McCain
By Heather Havenstein
June 19, 2008 (Computerworld) A political blogger is using a technique known as "Google bombing" to enlist the aid of fellow partisan bloggers to boost the search engine rankings of nine news stories that reflect poorly on Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

Chris Bowers, managing editor of the progressive blog OpenLeft, is launching the Google bombs by encouraging bloggers to embed Web links to the nine news stories about McCain in their blogs, which helps raise their ranking in Google search results. Bowers is reprising a similar Google bombing effort he undertook in 2006 against 52 different congressional candidates.

Hmm .... they cannot win on substance so lets raise the ranks on 9 negative stories and flood the searches ....

Julie Barko Germany, director of The Institute of Politics, Democracy and the Internet at George Washington University, said that while Bowers is probably not the only person to use such tactics, he is the first person she knows of to admit it publicly. She added that while they would be loathe to admit it, the campaigns themselves are likely using similar strategies.

"We know where Americans go first to search for information," she added. "They turn to a search engine. A Google bomb strategy is an interesting way to push negative or positive articles to the attention of the public."

While people who use the Internet regularly -- especially younger voters -- are not likely to be influenced by this type of a tactic, people who don't go online often may be influenced by stories that appear high in search results, Germany said. "That is an audience you'd worry about," she added. "They don't understand the subtleties of what is going on online."

In addition, she added that both the McCain and Obama campaigns have spent a lot of time, energy and money on search engine optimization strategies.

"If I were the McCain camp, I would be a little bit worried about it," she said. "When you have something like this, it could potentially be seen as sabotaging what you're doing in a subtle way. I don't necessarily see it as a major threat but more as a subtle threat."