The PM of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson, is no stranger to controversies. From getting fired from a newspaper for making up quotes to unexpectedly winning the vote of no confidence, he remains in the headlines.
Previously, the PM proved that, like any other person, his attention span isn’t quite efficient when working. Johnson made a call for people to return to the office, as when he tries to work from home, he gets ‘distracted’ by cheese and coffee.
Is he dodging Google?
His statement might seem completely harmless at first, but is there more to the story? Is Boris Johnson issuing such statements to dodge Google search by pushing down debatable articles on him from the past? It could be.
Rumors that the PM is trying to influence Google rankings first broke out two years ago. People within the digital community questioned if the ‘unusual’ answers he gave in interviews were to sway online narrative and alter search results.
An example is when an interviewer asked him about painting wine boxes to look like model buses. Most people probably brushed aside his statement, but with this one interview, he pushed old deep down into search engine results.
Hence, previous stories like his affair with a model and fight with Carrie became less significant.
Similarly, when he talked about his plans for the Irish Sea Bridge, people claimed it to be a genius idea. Still, it is possible he was using those words to make people forget about the £53m London Garden Bridge project, which failed miraculously.
Why is his method a success?
If Boris Johnson is using this unique technique, then it is working, and the reason is that majority of people search for short phrases. This is also due to Google’s autosuggest feature, which offers pre-completed text strings that appear when you start a search.
Search engines prioritize recent news; hence, if you have the authority to create headlines with every interview you give, it is effortless to manipulate them. While it is not entirely foolproof, the method works enough to get the last lousy news suppressed.
Source: openDemocracy
