A Google Bomb has recently resurfaced prompting mild chuckles across offices up and down the country. In 2004 George W. Bush was Google Bombed and became the top ranked listing when you searched [miserable failure] on Google.

This works because Google has a lot to do with anchor text links and in 2004 the use of personal websites was high enough so that people could manipulate this. People opposed to George W. Bush started linking their websites to his with the anchor text of [miserable failure]. Google read all these links, looked at where they were pointing and decided to make that web page relevant for the search term. With the rule back then of the more people linking to something, the higher it ranks, Bush soon became the number one listing for [miserable failure].

Google eventually deemed enough was enough and decided to “fix” this Google Bomb by removing Bush from the search results. But now it seems he’s reappeared. See the screenshot below or Google it yourself:

With the rise of the Knowledge Graph – Google’s attempt to discern meaning from ambiguous searches – it seems poor old George has been once again placed in the category of miserable failures.

So will Google once again fix this issue? Or will they leave this one be?

Blog Post by: Greg McVey