Santorum's 'Google Problem' Solved
It's a good time to be Rick Santorum. Not only did Santorum stomp Mitt Romney in yesterday's Louisiana primary -- the former senator has, it, seems, overcome his "Google problem." This is according to The Daily Caller, and a cursory investigation suggests it's true. "Spreading Santorum," the Dan Savage website created to radically redefine Santorum's surname, no longer even on appears on the first page of search results when one Googles "Rick Santorum."
The campaign sounded a triumphal note in The Daily Caller:
“The word Santorum is more relevant to Rick’s campaign,” Pasi explained in response to a question about the topic during a breakfast at Google’s Washington, D.C. offices Friday.
Pasi speculated that Savage had success with his campaign to disparage Santorum because “he had a huge platform through his columns to say go ahead and search for this, link to this.”
...That all changed as the campaign heated up and the campaign website got “inbound links from the New York Times” and other top news websites.
“We’re obviously a major player now,” Pasi said.
Early in his campaign Santorum petitioned Google to ban "Spreading Santorum" from its searches altogether, or at least demote it to the rear pages of search results:
He said then that Google “has repeatedly on more than one occasion taken down sites, taken down searches for folks like Barack Obama and Michelle Obama, but has left it out there for me for 10 years so people can be exposed to the most horrific filth that you ever want to see.”
He must be glad now that Google doesn't rank web sites' relevance according to its programmers' whims. Otherwise, "Spreading Santorum" could return to the top of Santorum's search results with the flick of a button. But it doesn't work that way. If "Spreading Santorum" should rise again, it will be because of lots and lots and lots of links.
Wasn't so true when I just "Googled" Santorum, and there it is, Spreading Santorum, moved down some with paid ad for the official Santorum site, followed by news, followed by the Wiki page about spreading Santorum, followed by the Wiki Santorum site, followed by news, followed by Spreading Santorum, mid way on the first page.
Fortunately, Spreading Santorum is alive and well. But, guys, do keep googling Santorum, clicking on Spreading Santorum, to keep up its prominence.
Posted by: Mike in Asheville | Mar 25, 2012 11:04:55 AM
Even Republicans who don't like him call him "Frothy". I mean, who didn't know by now. Like putting toothpaste (or lube) back in the tube.
Posted by: MarkUs | Mar 25, 2012 11:08:26 AM
It's on the very bottom of the first page for me
Posted by: Steve | Mar 25, 2012 11:10:40 AM
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck,
IT STILL A DUCK.
Posted by: normadesmond | Mar 25, 2012 11:13:33 AM
I just googled it and it was number two. :)
Just behind Rick Santorum for Prezdunt.
If you google just Santorum it's number 3 behind wiki entries for the redefinition of Santorum (worse than Savage's) and the mister himself. Number 4 is his santorum for prez site.
Posted by: Daniel | Mar 25, 2012 11:53:24 AM
Please if we have to have news about this primate, and I suppose we do, surely we don't have to actually look at him. Leave out the pictures please. Already there are two big ones on this first page and I need to keep my food down.
Posted by: uffda | Mar 25, 2012 11:57:42 AM
Actually, Mr. Santorum, if people want to be "exposed to the most horrific filth they'd ever want to see", they'd Google the words "Santorm Quotes"
THAT is your real "google problem", Mr. Santorum - that at the click of a button your lifetime of bigoted, prejudicial, racist, unintelligent and factually incorrect and outright LIES of comments are all over the web, for all to see.
Truly. The only thing more disgusting than the new, and deserved, definition of Santorum is the wealth of bigoted scum-bag quotes of his that are a part of his permanent electronic record.
the man is so stupid he doesn't even realize it.
question: does anyone still have the last name "Hitler"? Do any Hitlers exist? Do government allow people to change the name, with a look of "Oh you poor things..yeah, let's get you a new name.'"?
because we can add Santorum to that list. And not because of Dan Savage.
Spreading Santorum doesnt' slander the Santorum name for anyone not related to him. Folks with the last name no doubt are miserable at others thinking they're related to this bigoted waste of flesh.
Posted by: LittleKiwi | Mar 25, 2012 12:04:45 PM
Fail, Brandon.
The one "religious" ritual that I have observed the last few years as a result of Dan's project - and as we all have been encouraged to do - is to each morning hit the Goggle search for the term "santorum" and then hit the link to the Spreading Santorum link to maintain its prominence.
Earlier this morning as always, I appropriately "genuflected" - and there it was on the first page, as always.
Likewise just now at number five, on the first page:
" Spreading Santorum
blog.spreadingsantorum.com/
3 days ago – The frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex. "
Posted by: dave02657 | Mar 25, 2012 12:20:15 PM
So does it count if you click the links or make the link such as:
http://spreadingsantorum.com/
?
Posted by: Jersey | Mar 25, 2012 12:33:56 PM
It's still the number one result if you search "santorum" on Bing or Yahoo.
Posted by: rjnick | Mar 25, 2012 12:36:16 PM
I support UFFDA. Please don't post that man's face. I can't stand it. Replace it by something more pleasant, say, a vomiting kangaroo.
Posted by: Darbari | Mar 25, 2012 12:38:58 PM
Jersey: You must GOOGLE "santorum" and click on the spreadingsantorum link ON THE GOOGLE RESULTS PAGE. Just visiting the spreadingsantorum site doesn't help.
Click my name for the Google search.
Posted by: Anastasia Beaverhausen | Mar 25, 2012 12:44:09 PM
Yea Ricky, Dan Savage was the reason the Republican Party didn't nominate you.
Posted by: PLAINTOM | Mar 25, 2012 12:45:58 PM
The first thing I thought of when I saw this pig-faced bigot, was how my morning pancakes were on their way back up my esophagus and what a terrible waste of my husbands energy making me this lovely Sunday morning breakfast.
But, trooper that I am...I ate them right back up in honor of rick santorum...and when they come flying out the other end...his picture will be in the toilet bowl to catch the goodies.
Posted by: Paul B. | Mar 25, 2012 12:46:08 PM
7th for me. Wikipedia has the first 2 spots the first of which is about Dan Savage's Santorum site.
Posted by: ZineLondon | Mar 25, 2012 12:46:47 PM
I was going to say that Santorum's google problem will never be resolved because, after all, he is who he is, and anything one clicks on will therefore necessarily be repellant, but KIWI bet me to it. I'm okay with that.
Posted by: TJ | Mar 25, 2012 12:53:13 PM
If Dan addad a google ad to his site we could all click on it and the result would rise quickly on the searches
Posted by: Smuggy | Mar 25, 2012 1:01:49 PM
"[T]he most horrific filth that you ever want to see"? Really?
I can think of so many more things that fit the word "horrific." Torture, violence, injustice, rape, the list goes on and on and the examples are legion.
This is why I can't take people like Santorum seriously. He's the kind of person who would ban showing any nudity or sexuality on television but would be perfectly fine with wanton slaughter.
The incessant focus on moral issues that don't even really matter ... in spite of those that really, really, REALLY do.
Posted by: Jason 2 | Mar 25, 2012 1:06:10 PM
It doesn't matter if it's at the top of Google search results anymore. We've made our point, and made it well.
Posted by: Tone | Mar 25, 2012 1:07:04 PM
Its still there! It was #4 for me. Tee hee. Lets all make it a daily ritual as another Towleroad reader suggested. Search and click!
Posted by: Chicklets | Mar 25, 2012 1:12:12 PM
My understanding is that Google keeps its ranking formula secret, but that where a term ranks has to with with the number of "high-quality links" to the website in question. So a link from a Towleroad news article that is connected to the term will boost it's ranking, and a link from a site that ends in ".edu" will boost it more. As far as I know, the number of times people click does not boost a term's ranking.
Posted by: Gregv | Mar 25, 2012 1:15:23 PM
Every time I sign on the computer, the first thing I do is a web search for "Santorum". I alternate between Yahoo, Bing and Google.
Posted by: Jeff | Mar 25, 2012 1:40:02 PM
Rick Santorum never really had a "google problem." There was always more potential for the "spreading Santorum" website to get him a sympathy vote for center or slighly conservative Republicans who were undecided. I have warned Towleroad readers several times that this could happen. Clearly, though, Romney will be the nominee, so whatever sympathy it may have garnered him wasn't enough to get him the nomination.
But please let others in the LGBT community know that similar stunts carry a risk. Santorum was not an ideal candidate for several reasons and hasn't been running his campaign as effectively as he could have. But another candidate to slandered might have used something like this to cross the threshline of victory. And as a conservative I can tell you that the "spreading Santorum" website has already caused anger against gays among some Republicans. It is not being anti-gay for me to point out that many of these people will be voting on gay marriage questions this November and in the future. Think of the well-being of gays of the future. Don't alienate these voters needlessly. You want them to be at least neutral, or perhaps like me, someone who has resigned herself to the fact that gay equality is the future. Keep fighting for equality, yes. But leave the childish pranks to others.
Posted by: Mary | Mar 25, 2012 2:05:57 PM
We must be resolute in our mission to keep googling the words "santorum" and "frothy" together to help keep it on page 1.
Santorum as Frothy is no. 7 at 2:14 EST.
Posted by: johnny | Mar 25, 2012 2:15:20 PM
"Spreading Santorum" has not "caused" any Conservatives to be anti-gay.
There are no people in America, or the world, who were pro-Equality and supported LGBT people who then suddenly changed their mind because of the "Spreading Santorum" phenomenon.
Rick Santorum has spread nothing but prejudice, bigotry, intolerance, and outright lies about LGBT people for his entire political career.
His religious beliefs are false, as his piety and hypocrisy point out - he does not have any "faith" in Christianity or Christ whatsoever - if he did he'd be in big trouble, as he breaks the 9th Commandment on a regular basis - outright lies to make his "points."
He does not have any form of religious faith, he simply panders to the millions of unthinking lemmings who pretend to.
This man is this generation's Jesse Helms. Future generations will go out for big Taco Bell dinners, visit the cemetery, and take a massive dump on his grave.
wholly earned.
Posted by: LittleKiwi | Mar 25, 2012 2:16:42 PM