Austin Radio Host Spoofs Google Results… Well, Sort Of
Local Austin Radio Personality Bobby Bones developed a scheme to spoof Google this week. Bones encouraged listeners to repeatedly search on Google for a combination of his name, “Vanessa Hudgens”, and “making out”/”photos”/etc. Although the morning show joked that this would end up as another failed attempt to stir up some buzz (for listeners of the show, think of the double tap at Town Lake), there have been some real results this time around.
On Tuesday, Bones succeeded in reaching the top 100 searched-for phrases in Google, as reported by Google’s Hot Trends page for 10/13 and 10/14. The idea was that entertainment and gossip bloggers who crave this type of juicy info would start writing about the photos. As a result, Bobby Bones would get press mentions, and that – at – least – was – successful.
Not only are the gossip bloggers finding this “story” (and quite varied pictures across each post), but some bona fide news outlets have picked it up as well. The morning show also played clips of TV anchors that have been discussing how surprisingly easy it is to “spoof” Google.
But was this really spoofing Google? Sorry Bobby, not quite.
I feel that I should take a moment to acknowledge here how admittedly embarrassing it is that two of my favorite things have collided – the Bobby Bones morning show and discussions of search engines. I just couldn’t pass this one up; go ahead, judge me.
Google’s results for Vanessa Hudgens remain free from any mention of the actor/singer’s alleged photos with the Austin radio host. Google’s Hot Trends page is meant to “reflect[s] what keywords people are searching for on a daily basis,” and by influencing Bones’ listener base to search for the same related phrases over and over, he has jumped onto the top searched phrases during that day. This is more of a reflection of Bones’ popularity than any mission to fake out Google.
Our industry is forever looking for the next big way to use search engines and other outlets to get visitors to their sites and get their message/product/service out there, ultimately trying to make money in the process, of course. I’m not arguing that we should be turning to radio to get this done but hey, it worked this time.
