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Author Topic: Unholy alliance between 'bots and Google Trends?  (Read 1620 times)

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jaydub

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Unholy alliance between 'bots and Google Trends?
« on: January 25, 2010, 07:44:55 pm »

My favourite stupid morning show got yanked off the air today (hopefully temporary) which isn't something I'd normally share with you all - but a side effect is that I noticed something weird going on in the Intartubes with Google Trends.  When I plugged the following query into Google (Sarah Vinnie suspended) I got a bunch of blog posts that looked like they were written by bots with keywords related to the morning show (and ancient, related news stories), all with really similar phrasing: e.g.

"I saw this particular trends details, do you guys know of a Sarah and Vinnie Suspended? As far as i know Vinnie was a late actor and a football player. he was suspended becuase of a forceful assault on someone on the plane. he used such words that made Sarah and Vinnie Suspended. But im really confused if this is the Sarah and Vinnie Suspended  that the trends is talking about, well anyway, i will be posting more details on this issue of Sarah and Vinnie Suspended..."

The bot chaff is completely burying any legit discussions about the actual topic naturally.  I assume that is the point.
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Drygioni

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Re: Unholy alliance between 'bots and Google Trends?
« Reply #1 on: January 25, 2010, 07:51:41 pm »

Huh. I for one welcome our new *****ic overlords
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Carlos del Vaca

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Re: Unholy alliance between 'bots and Google Trends?
« Reply #2 on: January 26, 2010, 02:28:58 am »

The bot chaff is completely burying any legit discussions about the actual topic naturally.  I assume that is the point.

Have you tried Technorati?  That's usually better for finding bloggy discussions on a given topic.
www.technorati.com
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jaydub

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Re: Unholy alliance between 'bots and Google Trends?
« Reply #3 on: January 26, 2010, 06:26:47 am »

Thanks - I guess I've heard of this thing, maybe through Wired? 
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