How Rick Santorum Is Making His "Google Problem" Worse

Re:How Rick Santorum Is Making His "Google Problem" Worse by tptacek on Thursday January 05, 2012 @01:05AM (#3427645)

You think that of all the searches across the country for [santorum], most of them are for the prank? That strains credibility. I get that virtually no HN'ers are naturally interested in ultra-right wing conservative Republican politics, but let me assure you that approximately half the whole country is, and even the most conservative among them have net access.

Meanwhile, Google most assuredly does have signals as to which of the results on that first SERP are the ones users are actually looking for.

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Re:How Rick Santorum Is Making His "Google Problem" Worse by jonhendry on Thursday January 05, 2012 @10:47AM (#3429071)

"You think that of all the searches across the country for [santorum], most of them are for the prank?"

I think enough of them are that it justifies the prank being among the top results.

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Re:How Rick Santorum Is Making His "Google Problem" Worse by snowwrestler on Thursday January 05, 2012 @12:48PM (#3429632)

> Google most assuredly does have signals as to which of the results on that first SERP are the ones users are actually looking for.

Yes, and the spreading santorum site is the first result. So unless you have some actual counterproof, I think the reasonable assumption is that Google is giving the people what they ask for, as usual. Especially since Bing returns the same top result.

Anyway, the whole thesis of this thread is factually wrong, since the top result today on Google for "santorum" is actually the Iowa caucus results table from the Associated Press. So Google has, in fact, manually inserted a search result in response to the surge in interest in Santorum the candidate. (Bing, by the way, has not.)

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[dead]

Re:How Rick Santorum Is Making His "Google Problem" Worse by TheloniusPhunk on Thursday January 05, 2012 @02:35PM (#3430095)

Wow.

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Re:How Rick Santorum Is Making His "Google Problem" Worse by ascendant on Thursday January 05, 2012 @02:16PM (#3430020)

Lets get Zed Shaw and edw up in here and we'll have all the HN royalty in one thread, emirite?

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