‘Google bombing’ no longer to shock and awe

Google has put an end to the work of pranksters who manipulated the search engine to ensure looking for the phrase ‘miserable failure’ would bring up a link to President George Bush’s homepage.

The practice of ‘Google bombing’ hit the headlines in 2003, when it emerged that the phrase would link a surfer directly to the White House website.

Around the time of the Iraq war in 2003, a search for “weapons of mass destruction” would bring up a spoof error page saying: “These Weapons of Mass Destruction cannot be displayed.”