User talk:Brockert/sig

Googlebombing with a signature template
At 04:37, Jan 22, 2005, I edited my signature template to include, which renders as a bullet between the link to my user page and talk page, like this:
 * &mdash;Ben Brockert [[Image:George W. Bush.jpeg|2px|brain damaged chimp]] (RE: be CRT knob)

which renders as

I chose brain damaged chimp specifically because it had relatively few hits on google (less than 10,000). I then monitored the Google standings of the search term whenever I remembered to, to evaluate if user signatures could be used for effective Google bombing. I was also trying to evaluate the function of Google. Ideally, Image:George W. Bush.jpeg would have shown up under the Google image search.

Results
On Google:
 * Made #3 for Wikipedia talk:Bots within a week.
 * Later, #1 for User talk:Anárion.
 * At 07:06, Feb 13, 2005 (UTC), #3 again, for Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost.
 * At 03:27, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC), #4 for User talk:Brockert.
 * At 20:31, May 21, 2005 (UTC), #4 for Votes for undeletion.

With quotes,
 * At 07:06, Feb 13, 2005 (UTC):
 * The Smirking Chimp, my arch-nemesis.
 * Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost
 * Wikipedia talk:How to edit a page
 * User talk:SPUI


 * At 03:27, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC):
 * The Smirking Chimp, my arch-nemesis.
 * User talk:Brockert
 * Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents (a redirect)
 * easycooking - Community Info
 * wicked_wish: The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra
 * A mirror of User:Brockert, User:Brockert. Learn all about User:Brockert


 * At 20:31, May 21, 2005 (UTC):
 * The Smirking Chimp
 * The Smirking Chimp
 * Votes for undeletion
 * Wikipedia talk:How to edit a page
 * Ringtones, Logos ? Wikipedia:Votes_for_undeletion a mirror of Votes_for_undeletion.
 * easycooking - Community Info
 * wicked_wish: The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra
 * Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion - Wikipedia, the free ... a mirror of Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion

Conclusions
This type of tampering with Wikipedia and Google is both effective and difficult to detect. The signature was in place, unchanged, for four months, and I did not receive one comment on it. Either no one noticed it, or no one cared. Doing this in a normal signature would have failed quickly, because every person who edited a page with the signature would have seen the full text. Signature templates allow a level of secrecy about the signature that is not always in Wikipedia's best interest. The signature was used on at least 197 pages, and appeared many more times than that due to multiple signatures on a single talk page.

That user signatures only show up on talk pages is one drawback of this approach. If a person found a common article template that wasn't closely watched, and inserted some hidden text or hid an image, they might be more successful. I do not know if any templates are unwatched to that degree, but sometimes even the most brazen vandalism goes unchecked for a surprising length of time. For a google bombing to be successful, the alteration only has to persist long enough for the site to be re-indexed, which is likely a short interval for such a popular site. That Wikipedia is then mirrored by a number of leeches only strengthens the durability of such an approach.

Google image search apparently does not use the alt text of links to include them in the search, so it never did show up there. If it was possible to use the img tag on Wikipedia, I am confident that it could have been accomplished by using the text . That it isn't possible to do that on en: is a good thing.

Comments
If you happen upon this page, please leave me a comment here.
 * You're a sneaky devil! Rich Farmbrough 21:16, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes, and thank you for noticing. :) &mdash;Ben Brockert (42) UE News  00:39, 20 September 2005 (UTC)