Yeah, well, okay, this part didn't quite occur to me until, well, just now.
Is it possible to spike a search result or the web page it points to so that a specific query returns a deliberate result that is actually irrelevant to the query itself?
Work with me here, please, because I just never encountered something like this before.
I have a .pdf dictionary translating a particular language into English. While spoken by millions of people, it is not a language we would consider a driver of the human endeavor like English, French, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, &c. It is a fairly limited dictionary composed by missionaries focusing on the Gospel of Mark and "Cox Grammar", which in turn appears to be lessons designed for missionaries to teach others how to read and speak the English language while also proselytizing the Bible.
It was the first of these dictionaries I found; there aren't many available.
The introductory notes remind that the other language in the translating dictionary is tonal, and suggests one necessarily requires the assistance of a local in order to learn pronunciation. It was that word, though, indicating a person of this community, that turned me to Google. As it turns out, the word does not refer to a title within the community, but, rather, is the identification people use to describe an individual of the culture. Works for me; I just wanted to be certain.
But along the way, something strange happened.
I searched the word itself, and as you might expect the return brought me a plethora of sites in a language I don't speak or read. So I added the word definition.
The first entry of the return was, of course, a dictionary. Merriam-Webster, to be exact.
The word I was searching for does not appear on that M-W page; it does not appear on the cache copy.
The word I sought begins with the letter M.
The first search result was Merriam-Webster's definition for the word "scum".
These two words only come together amid ethnic tension.
It is exceptionally unlikely, but not impossible, that the word I sought ever appeared on this page of Merriam-Webster.com.
I don't really want to know the method; we ought not propagate such information.
However, the question remains: Is it possible?
SEO is one thing. But the word isn't on the page, and likely never was.
Is it possible to spike either the search engine or the page in order to create this result?
I figure the answer is yes, but I have to ask because it seems nearly unbelievable.
Then again, history suggests such animosity is possible.
Is it possible to spike a search result or the web page it points to so that a specific query returns a deliberate result that is actually irrelevant to the query itself?
Work with me here, please, because I just never encountered something like this before.
I have a .pdf dictionary translating a particular language into English. While spoken by millions of people, it is not a language we would consider a driver of the human endeavor like English, French, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, &c. It is a fairly limited dictionary composed by missionaries focusing on the Gospel of Mark and "Cox Grammar", which in turn appears to be lessons designed for missionaries to teach others how to read and speak the English language while also proselytizing the Bible.
It was the first of these dictionaries I found; there aren't many available.
The introductory notes remind that the other language in the translating dictionary is tonal, and suggests one necessarily requires the assistance of a local in order to learn pronunciation. It was that word, though, indicating a person of this community, that turned me to Google. As it turns out, the word does not refer to a title within the community, but, rather, is the identification people use to describe an individual of the culture. Works for me; I just wanted to be certain.
But along the way, something strange happened.
I searched the word itself, and as you might expect the return brought me a plethora of sites in a language I don't speak or read. So I added the word definition.
The first entry of the return was, of course, a dictionary. Merriam-Webster, to be exact.
The word I was searching for does not appear on that M-W page; it does not appear on the cache copy.
The word I sought begins with the letter M.
The first search result was Merriam-Webster's definition for the word "scum".
These two words only come together amid ethnic tension.
It is exceptionally unlikely, but not impossible, that the word I sought ever appeared on this page of Merriam-Webster.com.
I don't really want to know the method; we ought not propagate such information.
However, the question remains: Is it possible?
SEO is one thing. But the word isn't on the page, and likely never was.
Is it possible to spike either the search engine or the page in order to create this result?
I figure the answer is yes, but I have to ask because it seems nearly unbelievable.
Then again, history suggests such animosity is possible.
