| LED Digest 2197: The Miserable Failure |
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List Moderator: Published by:
Adam Audette LED Digest
adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com
..............................................
July 6, 2006 Issue no. 2197
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.....IN THIS DIGEST.....
==== CONTINUING =================
--== Google "Miserable Failure" Search ==--
~ Mekhong Kurt
"To say I'm flabbergasted is rather an understatement."
~ Chris Nielsen
"...this is an old issue where many people have
linked to the White House site..."
~ Michael Martinez
"The effect is called Link Bombing or Google Bombing..."
~ Baruch Avraham
"Maybe Bush should be happy, as the site that comes
up in Google, has a PageRank 8."
~ Steve Pronger
"That's the power of the Internet. And free speech."
--== Domain Ransom ==--
~ Ed Clark
"I ask [clients] to allow me the [Whois administration info]."
--== Selling on Amazon ==--
~ Charles Oertel
"It is a crime to separate business from humanity."
==== BILLBOARD ===================
--== Email Pirates ==--
~ Ed Clark
======== CONTINUING ===============================
From: Mekhong Kurt
Subject: Failure search
> My son came over for dinner last night and during idle
> conversation about George Bush, he told me that if you
> do a Google Search on "Failure" it will pull up George
> W. Bush, Biography of the 43rd President of the United States.
- Bob Sheridan, LED 2196
Upon reading that, my immediate suspicion was that Mr. Sheridan's
son was pulling is leg.
That suspicion went right up in smoke when I ran a Google search for
"failure" and got exactly the same result as Mr. Sheridan's son did.
Further, the GWB entry not only was first out of about 553 million
returns -- it was to the official White House Internet site. (I ran
the check at 3;33 A.M. EST.) I also did a search for the word
"failure" within the text at the White House site, and it isn't
there.
Whether Google is taking a political stance or its algorithim has
gone awry, this is of grave concern. It doesn't matter, finally,
what any of our opinions may be about this, that, or the other -- I
magine we all pretty uniformly expect politically neutral (DON'T
read "politically correct" -- that's a whole other kettle of fish)
returns from any search engine.
To say I'm flabbergasted is rather an understatement.
Mekhong Kurt, Webmaster
Bangkok's Voice On The Web
Bangkok, Thailand
-------- new post - same topic --------
From: Chris Nielsen
Subject: Failure search
> ... if you do a Google Search on "Failure" it will pull
> up George W. Bush, Biography of the 43rd President
> of the United States.
- Bob Sheridan, LED 2196
"Did you mean: miserable failure?" ***
- Google
I was not aware that "failure" would also bring up the president's
listing. He was originally targeted with the phrase "miserable
failure".
From what I understand this is an old issue where many people have
linked to the White House site with "miserable failure" as the text.
If there are enough people doing this, it can have the effect that
you are seeing. It is the power and also the failing of anchor text
linking.
In the past we have seen Google and other search engines discount or
remove things that can be manipulated or abused. I don't know why
this has not yet happened with linking, but I have been waiting for
several years for it to change.
I am sorry that you are shocked by this, but there are a large
number of people that find this an appropriate search result.
Thank you,
Chris Nielsen, Webmaster
*** P.S. Google offered that suggestion above in response to my
misspelling "miserable failure", not just entering "failure".
-------- new post - same topic --------
From: Michael Martinez
Subject: Failure search
> Does anyone out there know how this type
> of keyword search misdirection can occur?
- Bob Sheridan, LED 2196
Democrats and Republican partisans have been linking to the official
Web sites for President Bush, former Presidents Carter and Clinton,
and Michael Moore with the anchor text of "miserable failure" for
several years.
The effect is called Link Bombing or Google Bombing because Google
treats inbound link anchor text as if it is part of the document
being linked to. Bloggers first popularized this aggressive style
of linking several years ago. It has since become a popular method
of influencing search engine results rankings.
Michael Martinez
"Cuando Maria canta, canta para mí"
-------- new post - same topic --------
From: Baruch Avraham
Subject: Failure search
Hello all, not all is bad.
Maybe Bush should be happy, as the site that comes up in Google,
has a PageRank 8.
Best regards
Baruch Avraham
Aris Jewelry
-------- new post - same topic --------
From: Steve Pronger
Subject: Failure search
Bob, Google isn't misbehaving at all. You need to remember that the
Google algorithm is a machine. When it returns the results of a
search, it does so without comment, endorsement or editorial
discretion. It is expecting you, as an end user, to make those
judgment calls.
In other words it presents you with a list of web pages, ordered on
the basis of a pre-defined formula, which best match your search
query. Google is not participating in a practical joke or any sort
of political manipulation.
Why does a search return this result? It's known as a Google "bomb".
I believe the original targeted keywords were "miserable failure"
and it's a clear indication of the significance of inbound links,
and more particularly, the anchor text contained within those links.
I ran SEO Elite (link analysis software) on the site in question. It
returned these results:
- 851 unique links from sites across Google, Yahoo and MSN
(remembering that Google doesn't report all links)
Of those,
46.6% contained "failure"
42.7% contained "miserable"
So, it's really not hard to see why it ranks so well for these
terms, particularly as "miserable failure" isn't a search term that
many other sites will want to optimise for. Whose responsible for
creating these links? Here's a sample:
Note the "miserable failure" anchor text down the left column.
Whether you agree with the politics or not isn't the issue here. It
comes down to freedom of speech and freedom of webmasters to link to
whoever they want using whatever anchor text they wish. And Google
(rightly) doesn't see it as their place to interfere with that.
Unless you live in China, but that's a different story.
It's interesting to note the author of this site is trying to create
another bomb targeting "poodle" which links to Tony Blair. This
appears to be unsuccessful so far, and probably will remain so.
Plenty of sites want to be found for "poodle" so the competition
will be much tougher. Note also that Michael Moore's site isn't far
below Mr Bush. So, if you want some other site to rank #1 for
"miserable failure" just get enough sites to link to it using the
appropriate anchor text and it will happen. Start a movement. That's
the power of the Internet. And free speech.
Steve Pronger
-------- new post - new topic --------
From: Ed Clark
Subject: Domain ransom
> A very common problem (in Russia at least) is where
> registrars, ISPs and web development companies will
> register a domain in THEIR name instead of the
> CUSTOMER's name -- later, holding the domain for
> ransom later.
- Marty R. Milette, LED 2195
I pay a yearly fee (Wild West Domains) to be able and allow new
clients to register their domain names. First, I made them register
it... if they need help, I lend a hand. Second, they have all the
domain registration information and an account number. Third, they
have a password at the registration site, so they can control their
domain name.
I ask those that feel comfortable with the idea... to allow me the
password. If they run into a problem, I can sort it out for them. Of
course this takes some trust... but they trust me to Build and Host
their sites.
I hope this idea helps someone out there.
Ed Clark
-------- new post - new topic ---------
From: Charles Oertel
Subject: Amazon selling
> Do the bigger companies with higher sales get
> better placement? Yes. Is it fair? Maybe / Maybe Not
> - either way, BUSINESS IS NOT ABOUT BEING FAIR.
- Scott Marino, LED 2196
Ok, so this is off-topic, but I just cannot let it pass. Remind me
about never doing business with you. It is a crime to separate
business from humanity. There is no such thing as "Business is
Business", it is like "War is War" - not an excuse to not be fair
and human.
Charles Oertel
FineBushPeople.co.za
==== BILLBOARD ===================================
From: Ed Clark
Subject: E-mail Pirates
Ok, now I have a problem I need some help with.
As a somewhat small hosting company, I purchase my space on someone
else's servers. The company I deal with, has the latest version of
cPanel and it is very friendly to work with. I can give my clients
what ever I chose them to have out of the total available services.
One service that all my clients get is Web Mail accounts and control
of their accounts. Lately, I have had a big problem with people
pirating email accounts. These individuals use such email address'
as support@(domainname) and send spam out using these address'.
This is the return path on one such use:
--------------------------
Received: from rly-yb04.mx.aol.com (rly-yb04.mail.aol.com
[172.18.205.136]) by air-yb02.mail.aol.com (v109.13) with ESMTP id
MAILINYB22-19344aac21b9e; Tue, 04 Jul 2006 15:31:56 -0400
Received: from spark.dailydns.com (spark.dailydns.com [67.43.2.23])
by rly-yb04.mx.aol.com (v109.13) with ESMTP id
MAILRELAYINYB43-19344aac21b9e; Tue, 04 Jul 2006 15:31:39 -0400
Received: from [221.157.46.79] (port=1953 helo=67.43.2.23)
by spark.dailydns.com with smtp (Exim 4.52)
id 1FxqcH-00030z-MW
for ; Tue, 04 Jul 2006 15:31:26 -0400
Subject: I saw this for your web site
X-ClamAntiVirus-Scanner: This mail is clean
X-AntiAbuse: This header was added to track abuse, please include it
with any abuse report
X-AntiAbuse: Primary Hostname - spark.dailydns.com
X-AntiAbuse: Original Domain - themadgenius.com
X-AntiAbuse: Originator/Caller UID/GID - [0 0] / [47 12]
X-AntiAbuse: Sender Address Domain - themadgenius.com
X-Source:
X-Source-Args:
X-Source-Dir:
X-AOL-IP: 67.43.2.23
X-AOL-SCOLL-SCORE: 0:2:340619373:20401094
X-AOL-SCOLL-URL_COUNT: 0
--------------------------
Any information on a method to protect my clients from this type of
pirate would be appreciated... and information on how these
individuals acquire the email address.
Thanks
Ed Clark
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