How'd They Do This?

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Mike Rivers wrote:
> Go to google.com, type the word "failure" into the search box, and
> click the "I'm feeling lucky" button.
>
> This must be the work of a clever hacker, but how?
>

Nice !!

--
Eric

Practice Your Mixing Skills
www.Raw-Tracks.com
www.Mad-Host.com

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"Mike Rivers" <mrivers@d-and-d.com> wrote in news:1126975763.430270.264690
@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

> Go to google.com, type the word "failure" into the search box, and
> click the "I'm feeling lucky" button.
>
> This must be the work of a clever hacker, but how?
>
>

The word 'Idiot' is better...

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Mike Rivers wrote:
> Go to google.com, type the word "failure" into the search box, and
> click the "I'm feeling lucky" button.
>
> This must be the work of a clever hacker, but how?
>

Go to google, type "google bomb" into the search box and click "I'm
feeling lucky"

What's a Google Bomb?

Google Bombs were conceived last April as part of a brilliant gag by
Adam Mathes. In his own words:

Google is unique among search engines in that while it almost
always shows you pages that have the exact keywords you are looking for,
occasionally it will show you pages that don't have those keywords, but
other pages linked to that page with those words.

I first discovered this when searching for internet rockstar, which
turned up Ben's page. [editor: Adam is referring to internet rockstar
Ben Brown] At the time though, he did not actually have that phrase on
his page however the legions of teeny-bopper blogger morons who linked
to him always used that phrase in their links.

Adam identified a critical loophole in Google's algorithm. This article
I'm writing may be about Google Bombs... but if enough sites linked to
it using the phrase "Aunt Jemima," then this article might come up as
the first search result for "Aunt Jemima." In other words, the linker
can impact the Google Rank of the linkee.

Jonny Durango

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On 17 Sep 2005 09:49:23 -0700, in rec.audio.pro "Mike Rivers"
<mrivers@d-and-d.com> wrote:

>Go to google.com, type the word "failure" into the search box, and
>click the "I'm feeling lucky" button.
>
>This must be the work of a clever hacker, but how?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_bomb


martin

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"Mike Rivers" <mrivers@d-and-d.com> wrote in message...

> I don't know how Google orders their searches, I've never felt lucky
> and just did my own picking from what it comes up with.


I always do an "I feel lucky" before anything else. It's been better than
65% (give or take) accurate for me... especially if you have some good
key words for what you're looking for.

DM

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"Mike Rivers" <mrivers@d-and-d.com> wrote in message
news:1127044292.008457.261020@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
>
> Matt Ion wrote:
>
>> According to Google, "I'm Feeling Lucky" simply takes you straight to
>> the first found link. Nothing magical there.
>>
>> How Dubya's bio got to be the first hit is a whole different matter...
>
> I'm getting the sense (based on no research other than some rather
> brief responses in this newsgroup) that it may be keeping track of
> which link the user chooses first or which one is chosen most often
> when a list of links (not selecting the "lucky" option) is presented. I
> suspect that in this case, the word "failure" appears somewhere in the
> GWB link (I didn't check but it's a common enough word).
>
> The first search might have put that link way down near the bottom of
> the list, but you know how the word can get around on the Internet. If
> someone posts the instructions and tells the reader to go directly to
> the GWB link, the more people who do that, the closer the link gets to
> the top of the list. Given the unliklihood of people actually doing a
> search on the single word "failure" and getting something productive
> out of it, it probably doesn't take too many repeated operations to
> bring a particular link to the top of the list. And once it gets there,
> everyone who does what I posted to start the thread strengthens the
> link's position at the top.
>
> Then, when you "get lucky," there it is.
>
> I doubt that it's an Easter Egg. An egg is something that's planted by
> a programmer and appears when the user takes a specific action. I
> suppose a Google programmer might have forced this link as a default,
> but it's easier and safer to let the customers screw up the system.
>

Mike,

To simplify it drastically, Google organises its results based on how many
OTHER SITES link to the site in question with the search words (NOT how many
times the search words appear on the site in question). ie, if a link to
www.scrotum-productions.com is found on many other sites with the caption
"Scrotum are a fantastic local recording studio", then searching for
"fantastic local recording studio" might come up with
www.scrotum-productions.com, but including "fantastic local recording
studio" on the scrotum promotions site probably won't generate any hits.
That's how Google bombs work - a prankster gets as many people as possible
to link to, say, GWB's site, with the caption "total failure" - you know the
rest.

All "I'm Feeling Lucky" does is redirect you to the first link on the Google
results page. Nothing magical.

HTH

TJ

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Hi Mike,
Why were you typing failure into the search engine in the first place?

DS

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http://googleblog.blogspot.com/200 [...] ilure.html

Rv!

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"Mike Rivers"
>
> Go to google.com, type the word "failure" into the search box, and
> click the "I'm feeling lucky" button.
>
> This must be the work of a clever hacker, but how?


** It is very, very simple.

You * PAY * Google money to put your site at the TOP of their list when
specified key words or phrases are entered.

So - if you hit the " IFL " button - voila.

The practice is totally unconscionable - you can even use a competitor's
business name to send folk to your site.

There have been reports in the media about the practice here in Aussie just
lately - involving a huge corporation using it to squash smaller
competitors.




.......... Phil

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Phil Allison wrote:

> ** It is very, very simple.
>
> You * PAY * Google money to put your site at the TOP of their list when
> specified key words or phrases are entered.

That might work for McDonald's when you type in "fast food restaurant"
but somehow I can't see anyone at the White House paying Google to put
George Bush's profile at the top of the "failure" list.

On the other hand, I'll bet there are some people who would be willing
to pay whatever it takes in order to do that. Somehow, though, I think
that Google has SOME scruples and wouldn't do it consciously (but
obviously they don't preclued it from happening with some outside help).

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"Mike Rivers"
> Phil Allison wrote:
>
>> ** It is very, very simple.
>>
>> You * PAY * Google money to put your site at the TOP of their list
>> when
>> specified key words or phrases are entered.
>
> That might work for McDonald's when you type in "fast food restaurant"
> but somehow I can't see anyone at the White House paying Google to put
> George Bush's profile at the top of the "failure" list.
>


** There is no doubt an intermediate link invisible to Google users in this
case.

Google likely have no idea what the joke is.




.......... Phil

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Arny Krueger wrote:

> Google placement is partially based on how many times
> someone actually takes a given link.

This could explain why so often when I want to find a manufacturer's or
a busineess' web site and it's not the obvious, when I search for them
on Google, I'll find a bunch of dealers that sell the item on the first
page and the actual manufacturer's web site, if it's there at all, is
buried. I guess more people want to buy stuff than want to find out
about it.

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"Mike Rivers" <mrivers@d-and-d.com> wrote in message
news:1127308816.050311.72730@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
>
> Arny Krueger wrote:
>
>> Google placement is partially based on how many times
>> someone actually takes a given link.
>
> This could explain why so often when I want to find a manufacturer's or
> a busineess' web site and it's not the obvious, when I search for them
> on Google, I'll find a bunch of dealers that sell the item on the first
> page and the actual manufacturer's web site, if it's there at all, is
> buried. I guess more people want to buy stuff than want to find out
> about it.
>

If I could change one thing about Google it would be to add an "ignore
commercial sites" option.