Final Googlebomb Update

03 Nov, 2006 by John Hawkins

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There have been two Republican Googlebombs launched over the last few weeks. Googlebomb #1, on Oct 23, 2006; Googlebomb #2 was detonated on Oct 26, 2006 and it featured all YouTube videos.

So, we’re now up to the final week-end before the election and I’m sure a lot of people are wondering how well it worked. Pretty well actually.

Overall, we got 70 of 86 negative links into the top 30 search results on Google for the Democratic candidates we targeted. With Googlebomb #1, which has been out there a little longer, we managed to get 41 of our 45 links into the top 30 links for the Democratic candidates we went after. With the 2nd Googlebomb, we got 29 out of 41 links right on target.

Here’s a rundown of the individual races we targeted:

(GB1) = Googlebomb #1, (GB2) = Googlebomb #2

Steve Kagen #2 (GB2)
Steve Kagen #3 (GB1)
Brad Ellsworth #4 (GB1)
Baron Hill #4 (GB1)
Michael Arcuri #4 (GB1)
Zack Space #4 (GB1)
Ned Lamont #5 (GB1)
Phil Hare #5 (GB2)
Gabrielle Giffords #5 (GB1)
Bruce Braley #5 (GB1)
Baron Hill #5 (GB2)
Michael Arcuri #5 (GB1)
Lois Murphy #5 (GB1)
Chris Carney #5 (GB1)
Debbie Stabenow #6 (GB2)
Claire McCaskill #6 (GB2)
Jon Tester #6 (GB2)
Ed Perlmutter #6 (GB1)
Christine Jennings #6 (GB1)
Patricia Madrid #6 (GB2)
Mary Jo Kilroy #6 (GB1)
Phil Kellam #6 (GB1)
Eric Massa #6 (GB2)
Phil Hare #7 (GB2)
Diane Farrell #7 (GB2)
Ron Klein #7 (GB1)
John Yarmuth #7 (GB1)
Patricia Madrid #7 (GB1)
Phil Kellam #7 (GB2)
Joe Donnelly #8 (GB1)
Jack Davis #8 (GB1)
Chris Carney #8 (GB2)
Jon Tester #9 (GB1)
Julia Carson #9 (GB1)
Joe Sestak #9 (GB1)
Darcy Burner #9 (GB2)
Ben Cardin #10 (GB2)
John Murtha #10 (GB1)
Patty Wetterling #10 (GB1)
Harry Mitchell #10 (GB2)
Tim Mahoney #11 (GB2)
Tammy Duckworth #11 (GB1)
Kirsten Gillibrand #11 (GB1)
Zack Space #11 (GB2)
Patrick Murphy #11 (GB1)
Leonard Boswell #12 (GB1)
Chris Murphy #12 (GB1)
Bruce Braley #12 (GB2)
Tammy Duckworth #12 (GB2)
Mary Jo Kilroy #12 (GB2)
Claire McCaskill #13 (GB1)
Harold Ford #13 (GB1) (Broken Link)
Tim Mahoney #14 (GB1)
Kirsten Gillibrand #14 (GB2)
Ben Cardin #15 (GB1)
Ed Perlmutter #15 (GB2)
Brad Miller #16 (GB1)
Debbie Stabenow #15 (GB1)
Ben Cardin #19 (GB2)
Alan Mollohan #19 (GB1)
John Barrow #20 (GB1)
Sherrod Brown #20 (GB2)
Chris Murphy #20 (GB2)
Bob Menendez #22 (GB1)
James Webb #22 (GB1)
Jim Marshall #23 (GB1)
Brad Miller #23 (GB2)
Patrick Murphy #23 (GB2)
James Webb #25 (GB2)
Bob Menendez #30 (GB2)

Could this end up making a difference in a few close races? Sure, if a particular link was good enough, went high enough up the list, and enough independent voters read it while they were doing last minute research, it could swing a few hundred independent voters trying to figure out which direction to go in. So yeah, this could definitely help, in some instances at least, move races from the blue to the red column.