'Googlebomb' blows up in Daily Mail hack's face

A hapless Daily Mail hack's failure to understand Googlebombing has led to her becoming victim of her own twisted definition of the mischief-making practice.

In her piece last Friday, "Blears falls prey to 'Google Bomb' Attack Of The 50-inch Woman", Julie Moult hung a tissue-thin story about an alleged "Googlebombing" of Hazel Blears on the fact that a silly Photoshopped movie poster (by b3ta.com regular Beau Bo d'Or) of her is indexed by Google image search.

Probably the best known example of real Googlebombing is the George W Bush "miserable failure" campaign. By coordinated linking of the anchor text "miserable failure" to the official White House presidential biography, website owners were able to manipulate Google's algorithms to index Dubya at the top of the search rankings for "miserable failure".

A genuine Googlebomb is thus slightly more sophisticated than typing "Hazel Blears" into Google and finding a daft picture of, er, Hazel Blears.

"Last night, the prank raised the possibility that she was the victim of 'Google Bombing', when internet enthusiasts manipulate rankings on search engines," Moult wrote, wildly incorrectly. Bloggers have leapt on the error, with predictable results.

We have a little sympathy with Moult and her non-story. It's the scrag-end of August and news is hard to come by, especially for the Daily Mail: the Royal Family are away badger racing, paedophiles have retreated to their subterranean volcano lairs and even swan-roasting Albanian asylum seekers have gone south to avoid the Global-Warming-Chaos of the British summer.

But the web is less forgiving. Guess what happens when you Google "Julie Moult" now*... Quite literally hoist by her own Googlepetard. ®

*Note to Julie: this is not a Googlebomb either.