“The Shifted Librarian has some thoughts on Google Bombs. I don't get the analysis. Search engines rank returns. How do you propose they rank it?” [John Robb's Radio Weblog]
I'm worried about the weight given to blogs, as much as I love them. When Matt Haughey comes up higher than the company Critical IP site purely because more folks are linking to him, that's pure popularity, which isn't what you as a searcher necessarily want. It confuses things, especially for newbies. Radio is a perfect example. If someone comes to my reference desk for information about broadcast radio, I don't want the first ten results to be Winerlog. I'm not saying it's a crisis right now, but I am worried about all of those other types of manipulations mentioned in the Google Bombs article. When manipulating Google's search results becomes a game, search retrieval loses. [The Shifted Librarian]