April 25, 2006

Miserable Failure

Go to Google's main search page. Enter the phrase "miserable failure." Hit "I'm Feeling Lucky." You will either snort with laughter or be quite upset.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

How about a brief run-down on how this works? Because I couldn't find the words "miserable failure" anywhere in this document.

Burt Likko said...

Hmm. I wouldn't have picked you for the "quite upset" column, Nancy! People are full of surprises...

Anonymous said...

Wait a minute, you misunderstand, I wasn't challenging the accuracy of the description. Just the technology involved.

If you search Google for a phrase, aren't the hit documents supposed to *contain* the phrase? Yet, this one doesn't -- so does that mean that someone at Google is playing a joke?

Salsola said...

The most important factor are the webpages that reference the Bush page. Google works on references, not words on the page. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miserable_failure. This hit was artifical.