Jump to content

Political Google bombs in the 2004 U.S. presidential election

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Bryan Derksen (talk | contribs) at 08:06, 13 July 2006 (another ref markup). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
File:Miserable failure.png
A result of Googling "miserable failure"

Miserable failure is a term that became an Internet phenomenon in 2003 when it was reported that the first result for it on Google was the official biography of U.S. President George W. Bush. It has since become one of the most famous Google bombs. As of 2006, Bush's biography remains the top Google result for the term. In addition, the biography now also appears first for searches for the terms "miserable" and "failure" on their own.

Similarly, if one enters "miserable loser" into a Yahoo! search engine, two of the top 10 results will feature the unofficial campaign sites of Al Gore.[1] This may also be the backlash of Bush supporters in response (see retaliation below).

Origin of the phrase

The term's exact origin is unknown as it can be easily applied to anything someone finds truly terrible. It was used in the 1970s by the BBC to describe American intervention in Vietnam, and by the New York Times to describe certain architectural monstrosities. AFL-CIO president George Meany used the term to describe the Nixon Administration's wage and price controls. Its first recorded public application in relation to the Bush administration was by Dick Gephardt, who claimed during a debate, "This president is a miserable failure on foreign policy ... and on the economy. And he's got to be replaced."[2]

Google bomb

Main article: Google bomb

By creating links to the official presidential biography page[3] with text reading 'miserable failure', a relatively small number (possibly as few as 32[4]) of website owners and bloggers were able to make the site appear as the first result when searching for "miserable failure".[5]

Blogger George Johnston of the political blog Old Fashioned Patriot was the originator of this particular Google bomb.[6] In October of 2003 he began to encourage his visitors to participate in the 'bombing'.

By April 12, 2006, an email was circulating noting that searching for "failure" linked to the official president biography page.[7] Left unsaid by the email was the fact that searching for "miserable" did as well.[8]

The bomb has proliferated beyond the Google web search: "miserable failure" returns images of Bush on Google Images and Local and Maps return the "US Executive Mansion" and the White House as the first two results for "miserable failure" in Washington, D.C..[9]

As of May, 2006, there is a similar Google bomb on "Worst president ever".

Official response

Google has commented that it will not alter the result (or any other googlebombed results) because it wished to preserve the integrity of its search engine.[10]

In September 2005, the following ad appeared with the search results to explain the situation:

Why these results?
These results may seem politically
slanted. Here's what happened.

Retaliation

Bush supporters have since Google bombed Jimmy Carter, Hillary Clinton, and Michael Moore with the same phrase.

Some people have misinterpreted Michael Moore's listing as meaning that Moore was the originator of the bombing rather than a fellow recipient. Though Moore was not the originator, he has used these words to describe Bush on his site. Furthermore, for some time going to his site from the Google "miserable failure" search results would redirect the user to the biography of President Bush. As of November 2005, the user is redirected to a page with a photomosaic of President Bush made up of photos of fallen U.S. soldiers.[11]

Translation / International use

Several other governmental office holders have been Google bombed with various translations of "miserable failure" or others similar sentences :

On other search engines

Notes

  1. ^ "miserable loser". Yahoo! Search. Retrieved 2006-07-13.
  2. ^ "Democratic Debate Part III: The Economy". PBS Online NewsHour. September 4, 2003. Retrieved 2006-07-13.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: year (link)
  3. ^ "Biography of President George W. Bush". Whitehouse.gov. Retrieved 2006-07-13.
  4. ^ BBC News (2003). "'Miserable failure' links to Bush". Retrieved 2006-05-13. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  5. ^ "miserable failure". Google Search. Retrieved 2006-07-13.
  6. ^ Mikkelson, Barbara (2003). "Someone Set Us Up the Google Bomb". Urban Legends Reference Pages. Retrieved 2006-05-13. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  7. ^ "failure". Google Search. Retrieved 2006-07-13.
  8. ^ "miserable". Google Search. Retrieved 2006-07-13.
  9. ^ "miserable failure loc: washington dc". Google Maps. Retrieved 2006-07-13.
  10. ^ Mayer, Marissa (9/16/2005). "Googlebombing 'failure'". Googleblog. Retrieved 2006-07-13. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
  11. ^ "Welcome to MichaelMoore.com!". Retrieved 2006-07-13.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Political_Google_bombs_in_the_2004_U.S._presidential_election&oldid=63565222"