(NSFWish) Should Google associate Rick Santorum's name with "Santorum"?

I think it’s fitting… but it’d probably be even more fitting if it came up for Gringrich that scumbag.

They should take steps to counter it. It’s petty, disgusting, and juvenile, and for some reason many people think that it’s acceptable. I suspect that similar (or equal and opposite) action by conservatives would be met with only the hottest condemnation. Besides which, it’s interfering with the information-gathering process that voters go through in order to become the valued informed voter.

No, the current priority should subsist.

It’s not Google’s place to do so. Like it or not, “Santorum” is now a common term that is not going anywhere anytime soon. It should be treated just the same as anything else, even if it is in bad taste. People can and will say whatever they want; it is a principal on which the United States was founded, and it is not Google’s responsibility to sweep it under the rug. This could even be considered mild censorship.

@Nullo I really don’t see how it interferes with the “information-gathering process” any more than the usual mudslinging and smear campaigns. And while I might disagree with similar actions being applied to a liberal, I would not “meet it with the hottest condemnation.” People have the right to say what they want to say, petty or not; I will support that regardless, as would most liberals.

And besides- despite its crudeness, I happen to find the term to be quite amusing.

No. Why should Rick Santorum get special treatment? Can I make them change their algorithm to hide information about me? Google created the best algorithm it could. That one person dislikes the results is no reason to change it.

Full disclosure: I love Dan Savage.

That’s what santorum means?! Yikes! : )

Oh I see, I just read that it was given that meaning after his controversial anti-gay, anti-anal sex remarks years ago. In that case, I could get behind that meaning. Heh heh.

Gays bash back! He started it. He got what was coming to him.
You don’t get to be a bigot in this world and get away with it.

It’s a bad coincidence, and people should be able to realize that.

I love it.

@Blackberry It’s not a coincidence, Dan Savage deliberately started it as a Google bomb back in 2003 after Santorum made some remarks comparing homosexual sex to bestiality, child molestation, incest, polygamy, adultery, and denied any right to privacy.

@Aethelflaed Oh, I didn’t know that. Oops.

I’m gonna say no. The whole purpose to google is to be able to find what and who you are looking for. If when I typed in a name all I got was body parts instead of the person I was actually looking for then I wouldn’t use google that often.

I’d probably go to Bing (cringe)

Google is a search engine, whose purpose is to provide relevant information to a user based on the user’s query, simple as that. Not only does the base algorithm play a role in the results the user sees, but the user’s Google profile, web behavior and search history are also part of the calculation when the result pages pop up. I’m sure in this case, Google’s not chomping at the bit to adjust anything for the results of “Santorum”. I’m sure the engine is working just fine as it is….and/or i don’t think it needs any tweaks. Here’s a few reasons why:

1)Most searchers looking for info on the political figure will type “Rick Santorum”, not just “Santorum”.

2)“Information Gatherers” probably have a search history leaning toward politics, and look at Google news stories on the topic, therefore would have personalized results for what they’re really looking for if they just typed “Santorum” , even though… see #1. Still, they’re not gonna get a bunch of anal sex results.

3) Do you search something in Google and then automatically click the first result without reading the title and description of that result? Yeah, neither do I, neither does anyone else, we’re not mindless drones, we’re gonna take the three seconds it takes to find out if our query got us the results we were expecting. If not, we instinctively revise our query. No one who’s looking for Rick Santorum will be satisified with anal sex results. Furthermore, when that happens, Google recognizes it and adjustments happen in the ranking systems automatically.

4)There’s something called “Safe Search”, which by default is set to “Moderate”, meaning none of that trashy stuff is favored in the engine, and is unlikely to surface on most average users’ searches

5) Google recently released an update to its algorithm, lovingly referred to as the “Freshness Update” that includes a factor we in the SEO world call “QDF”, or “Query Deserves Freshness”. Any topic or query that is news-worthy (ie politics) and has more recent, “fresh” content available on the web will end up bumping those fresh pages to the top of the results. “Santorum” is certainly a plausible target for QDF adjustments in the search results. It’s unlikely any old anal sex articles will beat the freshness update for widespread constant recent news stories for the political figure.

So…. nah, Google doesn’t need to do anything. Besides, it’s too busy adjusting its algorithms to penalize its OWN websites (ahem…Chrome…) in the SERPs (search engine result pages, for u kiddos out there).

Slate seems to think it won’t be that way for much longer. Personally, I think he’s a frightening, hateful bigot, and I will admit to a healthy case of schadenfreude.

@Blackberry It’s not a coincidence – it was an intentional campaign.

I don’t want Google to change it, because I don’t want Google getting involved with politics any more than each country compels them to. If this is the big rhetoric around Santorum, then Google shouldn’t be interfering with that.

Every time I start to feel bad about what Savage did to Santorum, I look up more about Santorum’s record and what he’s said and I feel fine about it.

Also, let’s be fair. The top result for “santorum” does list Senator Rick Santorum as its second definition of the word. So it’s not completely obfuscating.

I was unaware until now when I was told that this was intentional, but I also do not care lol. I just googled ‘santorum’ and ‘rick santorum’ and he was at the top page, and the lower links were talking about the problem we’re discussing.

@Blackberry Santorum was lucky Savage did not use his whole name. Reek Santorum – preserved thirty day old frothy…

Lol!

@willbrawn Bing doesn’t change much: the top two results are still about santorum rather than Santorum. And remember, it isn’t Google or Bing associating Santorum with santorum. Search engines reflect how the internet already is through their algorithms.

@mazingerz88 Dan has a good reason for not using Santorum’s full name.

@SavoirFaire LMFAO! Thank you for that video!

@SavoirFaire… “Search engines reflect how the internet already is through their algorithms”

That’s actually an inaccurate statement. Search engines are hugely powerful (well, Google is really all that matters) . The word ‘algorithm’ gets thrown around a lot, without much of a clear understanding of the inner workings. It’s not like a viral trend or a tidal wave of internet ‘fad’ that alters an algorithm, or the search results (although viral trends do influence the results a bit).

Google’s search index is a living, breathing database of huge amounts of pages and content. And pretty much each page (top few levels on each domain) get crawled, analyzed and indexed all the time. Every page in Google’s index is taken into account individually… there’s not a big huge momentum shift that makes whatever is big on the internet at the time, reflect as such on Google. If anything, it’s the opposite. Google has more power to shape whats big on the internet than the reverse.

I could go on but I think you get the idea.

By the way, there’s no point in talking about Bing, which has already been caught red-handed as basically a Google result thief. Might as well still just talk about Google.

He’s a bigot who got what he deserves. Google should not change their algorithm because some famous bigot is getting well-deserved bad publicity.

@gambitking I fail to see how that addresses what I actually said. I made no comment about moments in time or about search results mirroring popularity. I said that it isn’t Google doing the associating. The association already exists, and it shows up on Google.