Sunday, February 27, 2011

Rick Santorum's Google Problem

Republican ex-Senator from Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum has a Google problem. He apparently has aspirations to run for US President, but if you Google his last name you get this, "Santorum: The frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex." Pretty gross! This is the first hit you will get on Google for his name.

This is no accident. Earlier this decade Santorum made some pretty rude comments about gays. He compared gay sex to bestiality and he supported sodomy laws among other things. He basically believes that consenting adults don't have a right to privacy in regards to their sex life. This pissed off the gay community, in particular Dan Savage, a columnist that I like. In his column, Savage Love, Savage challenged his readers to come up with a definition for the word santorum and the above definition is what they came up with. Now anytime anyone links to it and clicks on it after they search for Santorum, it is appears at the top of the Google search. The Google algorithm is a secret but it certainly involves the frequency of associated links and the number of times someone clicks on it after the search results are displayed. I don't know exactly how to game the Google algorithm, but whatever I can do to keep someone like Santorum away from the White House, I will do it.

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