Rick Santorum's Google problem remains

[redstar826]

Rick Santorum, who lost by just eight votes to Mitt Romney in Iowa's caucuses this week, has several roadblocks in the way of transitioning Tuesday's impressive finish to a Republican presidential nomination: a limited war chest, a meager campaign infrastructure and a history of controversial stances on social issues

Comments

[owlsarentaholes]

I work in internet marketing, and I find this so incredibly amusing. I doubt he's going to be able to make that shit go away - or even drop off the first page - any time soon.

[muppetfromhell]

Me too. And seriously, this article is annoying. Google isn't in the business of providing phony results!? That's not the issue here. The issue is they redefined the word and the other results are now equally/more relevant. Sheersh

[owlsarentaholes]

What would a "phony search result" even BE? That's not how the algorithm works. All the results are "real".

[muppetfromhell]

How is search result formed?

[ten_of_swords]

I may be alone in this, but the whole fake definition for "santorum" isn't funny to me. As someone who shares a last name with another Republican asshole, I can say from firsthand experience people asking if you're related to them is bad enough. Then there was a thing on urbandictionary trying to equate my last name with something gross. I feel bad for people with the last name Santorum, not only do they have this momentous douchebag with the same name but the internet has run rampant associating their name with fecal matter.

[decuvieri]

You're not alone. Rick Santorum isn't worthy of an iota of respect as he has proven to be an idiotic, shitty human being and a piss-poor politician. That said, the whole "Spreading Santorum" thing irritates the fuck out of me. Not only is it damaging to those outside of it who are unfortunate enough to share the surname, but it's just not funny. I really hope Jon Stuart's pledge to stop making "Santorum" jokes was sincere, because I cannot roll my eyes hard enough when somebody makes a reference and think they're being clever.

To be fair, I also believe Dan Savage is a piece of shit too, so that might have made me predisposed to loathe the campaign from the start.

[ten_of_swords]

Yeah, I never want to participate in anything relating to Dan Savage.

[ms_mmelissa]

Yeah, I've always felt uncomfortable with it as well.

Melissa McEwan wrote a nice piece on the subject and how it amounts to bullying a bully and how ultimately nobody wins just yesterday!

http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2012/01/santorum.html

[benihime99]

XD I love how OP linked every mention of his name to that page^^

It's not really "google" problem per se though. People are just better than his team at "online referencing" (not sure of the word here)
And I doubt Google can do or are willing to do shit (joke intended) about that.

[skellington1]

I believe google's actually been asked, and pretty much said they can't and aren't willing to do shit. :) I'll have to hunt for the sauce on that, though.

I do love the ignorance of the internet that is conveyed by simple things like "Why hasn't his campaign dealt with this?" Because it's not that easy!

EDIT: Article at the Seattle PI

[lightbird777]

Here's the _p post on that.

[benihime99]

Yeah I just can't with people thinking internet is super easy.
Sure it's user friendly when you're doing the research but try writting some code...

[itsirtou]

haha, I was just made aware of this last night when I watched the Daily Show and John promised to give up all of his jokes about "santorum"

[hammersxstrings]

bahaha I love how he flashed to the county map of where the votes were at and Santorum's counties were brown, then they flashed back to him and his face...

ahhhh his facial expressions kill me

"You have no idea how hard it is to clean Santorum off of you. For the love of God, don't google that!"

[belleweather]

Wasn't there a thing some months back where he went to Google and asked them to basically change the search results so that his website would appear before Dan Savage's and Google was like "Hahahahahaha... no. Absolutely not." and then he jumped up and down like Yosemite Sam and screamed about obscene speech and how we were all offending his first amendment rights and stuff? Or did I make that up in my head.

[telemann]

Yep. Google said they couldn't do anything.

[bushy_brow]

how we were all offending his first amendment rights and stuff?

God, I fucking HATE it when politicians don't even understand how the Bill of Rights works.

...Not that I expected better from Frothy, really. This is just reason #56938506 to hate him.

[wrestlingdog]

You didn't make it up; someone else posted it upthread.