In the arms race between Republicans and Democrats to exploit the
Internet as political tool, Democrats are winning.
By Mark Hemingway
In August 2006, just a few months in advance of the midterm elections,
26 million citizens were logging on to the Internet to get information
about the campaigns, according to a survey by the Pew Internet and
American Life Project. That amounts to 13 percent of all adults in the
country using the Internet as a tool to make informed political
decisions.
Nobody doubts that the Internet is increasingly invaluable for
disseminating political news and information as well as campaign
organizing and fundraising. Unfortunately, disinformation and media
manipulation are the chocolate and peanut butter of politics.
Substantial pitfalls remain for ordinary citizens looking to the
Internet for up-to-date and accurate political information. For
example, when you search the Internet for information are you seeing
an objective listing of what's notable about that candidate or issue ―
or are you seeing what someone else wants you to see?
That's the question raised by "Google bombing" ― Internet slang for an
attempt to influence the rankings of search-engine results by
manipulating the algorithm Google uses to catalogue web pages.
Google-bombing techniques can be quite sophisticated, but in a
nutshell: If enough blogs and/or web pages link to something using the
same "anchor text" in the link, then that web page will shoot to the
top of the Google results for the search phrase. One recent example of
Google bombing is how Stephen Colbert shot to the top of the Google
results for "greatest living American" by imploring his audience to
create links on their blogs and websites that linked the anchor text
"greatest living American" to Colbert's website.
However, many Google bombs are expressly political. The second Google
bomb ever created made George W. Bush temporarily the top search
result for "dumb mother**ker." Since then, Google bombs have gradually
gone from jokes and base political expression to an organized campaign
to affect public opinion in a way that some would say is insidious. In
some cases, a relatively small number of blogs have had a huge impact
on the rankings ― possibly as few as 32 blogs were able to make the
White House biography page for George W. Bush the number one search
result for "miserable failure" back in 2003.
And notably, since the inception of Google bombing seven years ago,
political Google bombs have been predominantly a tactic of the Left.
While Google bombing isn't exclusive to Democratic partisans (in 2004
a Republican blogger instigated a successful Google bomb for John
Kerry and "waffles"), the liberal blogosphere is far more actively
trying to Google bomb Republican candidates.
"The whole concept is born of the idea that both voters and
journalists are going to Google to find information about candidates
for office. If the liberal blogs can place links with damaging
information about Republicans in front of journalists and voters, then
they think they can negatively influence that candidate's electoral
chances," said William Beutler, Senior Online Analyst at New Media
Strategies and originator of the Hotline's Blogometer column, in
addition to being the writer behind BlogPI.net, a blog devoted to
tracking developments in the political blogosphere.
Here's how the liberal blogosphere put Google bombing to work in the
2006 midterm elections. In late October, just a few weeks prior to the
midterm election, blogger Chris Bowers* ― who's been the key
instigator of Google bombing Republican candidates ― crossposted a
plan to Google bomb 70 key congressional races on the hugely popular
liberal blogs MyDD.com and DailyKos.com:
Step One: With help from readers at Dailykos and MyDD, I will compile
a list of seventy articles, one for each targeted race. Every article
will focus on a different Republican candidate, and will be written by
as generally trusted a news source as possible. It will also present
as unflattering a view on the Republican candidate as possible. All of
these articles will be placed into a database that I will maintain
with the help of willing volunteers.
Step Two: Once the database is complete, BlogPac will purchase Google
Adwords that will place each negative article on the most common
searches for each Republican candidate. Simultaneously, I will produce
an article on MyDD that embeds that negative article into a hyperlink
that names the Republican candidate. I will then send a copy of that
post out to as many bloggers as possible, who can also place the post
on their blogs. One posting of this article will be enough.
Step Three: All further discussion of the Republican candidates in
question on all participating blogs should include an embedded
hyperlink that will increase the Google search rank of the article on
the given candidate.
The result of this should be that the most damning, non-partisan
article written on every key Republican candidate for House and Senate
will appear both high on every Google search for that candidate, and
automatically as an advertisement on every search for that candidate.
BlogPac will cover the costs. The netroots will supply the research.
Obviously, the 2006 midterms went very well for Democrats, though
there's no way to quantify the contribution of Google bombing to the
Democrats' electoral success, especially amidst all the G.O.P. scandal
and other national developments heading up to that election. But it
can't be discounted either.
A good case study is Kansas Congressman Jim Ryun, who lost a narrow
election for his seat in 2006 and was one of the candidates subject to
the netroots Google-bombing attack. "When a campaign goes wrong and a
five-term incumbent loses, there are a whole lot of things that have
gone wrong. So was the Google bombing the sole reason we lost? No. Was
it a part of it? Yes, but how big a part I don't know," said Drew
Ryun, the former congressman's son and himself a former deputy
director in the grassroots division of the Republican National
Committee.
Beutler, however, thinks that Google-bombing attacks are often less
than effective. "You're assuming that your link is putting information
in front of journalists or voters that they didn't already have.
Unfortunately, the things they are linking to are always things that
the [liberal] netroots have calculated will be bad for their
candidate," he said.
The wisdom of crowds doesn't always apply to the netroots in this
respect, notes Beutler, who cites a recent Google-bomb attack on John
McCain. "With McCain their Google bomb was something about McCain
supporting the Iraq war … I think everybody knows John McCain is a
strong supporter of the war in Iraq ― that's never been in doubt. I
don't think they're fundamentally changing anyone's perception of
him," he said.
Further, Google is not amused by the continued attempts to interfere
with the purity of search results. The first reaction at the Mountain
View headquarters was to ignore the manipulation of the search engine.
"We don't condone the practice of Google bombing, or any other action
that seeks to affect the integrity of our search results, but we're
also reluctant to alter our results by hand in order to prevent such
items from showing up," according to a statement Google released on
its website in 2005. But Google bombing has remained a persistent
problem, so much so that in January of this year Google announced that
it had tweaked its search algorithm to minimize the impact of Google
bombing.
Despite this, many Google bombs remain intact. As of now, the story
the liberal netroots Google bombed to paint Ryun in a negative light
in 2006 ― an unsubstantive hit piece from the Topeka paper on whether
or not Ryun merely forgot or actively lied about living on the same
Capitol Hill street as scandal-beleaguered Congressman Mark Foley ―
remains the sixth-ranked Google result for Jim Ryun.
Still, few Google bombs make it to the top result where they could
have the most impact. "When the average person uses Google they are
overwhelmingly likely to click on the very first link or the first
couple of links, even by the eighth link on a page at that point very
few people are clicking through to it," Beutler noted, citing studies
of how search engines are used. "I've seen Bowers announce with
enthusiasm that 'we've got this one link up to, like 45.'After the
first page it's almost completely worthless," he tells National Review
Online.
Regardless, the liberal blogosphere, and Bowers in particular (who did
not respond to a query for this piece), remain actively engaged in
Google bombing and seem to have few if any ethical qualms about the
lack of transparency. "If you look at Bowers writings on this, he
refers to this as SEO ― "Search Engine Optimization" ― but it's not.
They are really trying to game search engines," Beutler says. "It's
not making the pages better, it's not doing the organic things that
Google is supposed to do."
But even if Google bombing is ineffective more often than not, the
risk and effort are minimal compared to the potential reward. Bowers
claims somewhat hyperbolically that Google bombing is a "quick action
that can eventually be worth the equivalent of tens of millions of
dollars in national TV ads." However, for the time being, it still
appears to be paying off. As a result of a Bowers-instigated Google
bomb, a story noting that 9/11 hero Rudy Giuliani was the only
candidate not invited to speak to a recent Firefighters Union
Presidential candidate forum, is currently the #6 Google result, just
one link below the Time magazine story pronouncing him 2001's Man of
the Year. And Google bombing is sure to accelerate as the 2008
election progresses.
Meanwhile, this has many concerned about how this is just another
example of how Republicans are outmatched when it comes to tapping the
resources of the Internet for political gain.
"I think in 2006 the Democrats and their allies became very adept at
using the Internet as a very effective political tool in a sense to
offset what they felt was the unfair advantage of conservative talk
radio," says Drew Ryun. "I think we saw in 2006, if [the Democrats]
didn't perfect it they came close to it ― Jim Ryun wasn't the only
Republican that got dinged. I think the Republicans and the
conservatives have one of two options, let them keep winning or figure
out a more effective Internet strategy going into 2008. If there is
room to improve, the Left is going to find a way."
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