Danny explains how Google has made a slight algorithmic shift, so that "miserable failure" doesn't bring up the WhiteHouse.gov page anymore, but does leave legitimate commentary on the "bombing" intact. (Seems correct. The only weak attempt I've made at a GoogleBomb - type "woefully out of touch" with the quotes into Google - had an article by a Globe and Mail reporter ranking at the top. Now that's pushed down to 18th place, while my commentary on the bomb ranks #1.)
Seems like the sort of thing the Googlers could figure out. The change in ranking methods might affect non-bomb type rankings also. The present site had Page 1 rankings about the term "portals" based on a lot of established links around the web referring to us as the Guide to Portals. After we stopped calling ourselves that, the rankings persisted, due to the strong link pattern and the external anchor text. Perhaps that's not quite fair to the other sites on the topic, or today's enterprise portal vendors, etc... or to our change in focus to be commentary on the industry around search marketing. I see, though, that we still rank #2 on "portals," just behind Wikipedia :), so that can't be it. Of course, there is still a huge amount of info on the site that uses that word, so I guess that's the difference. You don't see a lot of "miserable failure" talk directly on WhiteHouse.gov.
Posted by Andrew Goodman
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