Google-bombing action for Alaa

by Haitham Sabbah on 05/09/2006

Ok, let's do something productive. It is called "Google-bombing for Alaa." Here is the deal: http://freealaa.blogspot.com/

A team of bloggers from all around the world are teaming up to create a special blog about Alaa's detention. Then bloggers from all around the world are asked to link to this page using the text "Egypt". (Due to the way that Google's PageRank algorithm works, a page will be ranked higher if the sites that link to that page all use consistent anchor text.)

  1. The initiator chooses a word to be searched : "egypt"
  2. The initiator chooses the target website : "http://freealaa.blogspot.com/"
  3. The initiator creates a link like this :
    <a href="http://freealaa.blogspot.com/">egypt</a> result will be: egypt
  4. The initiator places this code in his website, as his signature in forum, in his blogs as a tag to a post, on his sidebar, etc... do whatever you like with it (see Rachel Rawlins, example here!).
  5. The initiator talks to other people about the "bomb" and tells other people to use the code in their own writings.
  6. GoogleBot indexes and ranks, resulting in Google search having Alaa's case as a first result

We think this could be a very popular action because it would give people around the world a chance to do something productive in support of Alaa. Hopefully having the illegal detention of a political prisoner as the first page when the word "Egypt" is searched would be an embarrassment to the Egyptian government (assuming they have enough shame to be embarrassed by such a thing). Secondly, it would raise awareness about Alaa since anyone searching for "Egypt" on Google would learn about his case. Finally, the Google-bombing itself might draw more MSM attention to Alaa's detention.

So, let's do it. Google-bomb for Alaa!

Write "Egypt" and link it to http://freealaa.blogspot.com/

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PS. Some of the most famous google-bombs are also expressions of political opinion (e.g. "liar" leading to Blair or "failure" leading to Bush.

Update 1: Global Voices - Managing Editor, Rachel Rawlins, is the first to make a Google-bomb for Alaa. See the example here. Thanks, Rachel!

Update 2: As Tololy called it: "Walk Like an Egyptian". Many more bloggers started "bombing". To name some: Oleander, Alb Sayed, Sofia and of course Global Voices...

Update 3: The "Google-bomb for Alaa" is on Digg. Go Digg it!

Update 4: You might like to add a link to your post here. This wiki lists 'some' of the 'google-bomb' post. Of course this is done manually, so it can't be the full list.

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1 Alb Sayed May 9, 2006 at 6:02 pm

Haitham, great idea, and I’m definitely on board. My only comment is that in the last hour, I’ve gotten the Free Alaa blog to load successfully twice, and I’m on a high speed connection.

So maybe we can move the blog to a more reliable host (other than blogger), or maybe we can have several instances of it (mirror sites) so that the traffic is distributed.

2 Tololy May 9, 2006 at 7:10 pm

Good idea. Count me in.

3 Carsten Agger May 10, 2006 at 12:13 am

I have no problems with the speed of the Free Alaa! blog?

I’ve written a lengthy post (in Danish), calling for others to protest and publicize the case and including the GoogleBomb several places:

http://www.modspil.dk/politik/free_alaa____opsummering_og_opfordring.html

Let’s hope a lot of people do the same!

4 AhmedT May 10, 2006 at 5:30 am

Haitham,
Got one up here. Great Idea. One way we can all get it spreading more is to post the bombs in newsgroups.

5 raindrop May 10, 2006 at 8:02 am

Release Alaa.

my google-bomb is ON

6 Peter S. May 11, 2006 at 12:10 am

Sabbah,

I created an entry in the Wikipedia on Alaa Abd El Fatah & his plight. I figure some journalists might turn to Wikipedia once they start hearing his name mentioned around the blogsphere.

The entry is bare bones. I encourage anyone who has more information to contribute to it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaa_Abd_El-Fatah

7 Haitham May 11, 2006 at 12:38 am

Peter,

Thanks a million. I’ll post this link in “Free Alaa!” blog now.

8 ???? ??????? May 11, 2006 at 8:49 pm

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9 Ceridwen Devi May 18, 2006 at 9:49 pm

Have blogged and dugg this! Good luck.

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