to think Boris is trying to game google results on police being called to his house?

[timegoingtoofast]

Last week, if you googled "Boris Johnson" and "police" you'd get articles about the police being called to his home after his shameful behaviour towards his partner.

e.g. articles like this one that said:

Police were called to the home of Boris Johnson and his partner, Carrie Symonds, in the early hours of Friday morning after neighbours heard a loud altercation involving screaming, shouting and banging.

The argument could be heard outside the property where the potential future prime minister is living with Symonds, a former Conservative party head of press.

A neighbour [...] heard a woman screaming followed by “slamming and banging”. At one point Symonds could be heard telling Johnson to “get off me” and “get out of my flat”.

But now, you don't get that at all. Instead you get lots of articles about him using the police as a backdrop for a political speech.

AIBU to think someone advising him understands SEO (the art of gaming Google results) and set this up deliberately?

It's not the first time either, he very unconvincing tried to tell us all he relaxes by painting model buses made out of wine crates (seriously?!) - a story that moved criticism of his bus lies down the Google results. And also distracted from other bad press at the time. www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/the-sinister-theory-about-boris-johnson-s-model-bus-story-john-mclellan-1-4956344/

Interesting. This is something I've never heard of before. How is it done? I assume PR bods manage it somehow? But how?

SEO

Search Engine Optimisation

Quite a big sector now

This never would have occured to me but it makes a lot of sense 🧐

OP I agree

Interesting, wouldn't be at all surprised, but it took him a long time to get round to doing it.

I do think that BJ-Cummings team are banking on that.

Much as there are still perfectly sensible people who think that NO DEAL

a) = status quo - we remain - Wrong!

And/or

b) = an end to all this - Wrong! It is the START of years & years of negotiations + agony
rather than leaving with a deal, which is years of negotiation + pain

@cupofcake
Parliament reopened Monday & he did it on Thursday.

Couldn't really do it whilst Parliament on recess - which is why he did a similarly hokey fb chat.

Google it and scroll down until you get the domestic disturbance story, and click on that. Might balance it out a bit.

Absolutely.

He played this trick not long ago with his 'hobby' of building model buses. That's what comes up on google now rather than the massive amount of money he spaffed up the wall whilst mayor on the new Thomas Heatherwick London Routemaster buses.

It does seem convenient. Wonder what will be next. Children?

This is something I've never heard of before. How is it done? I assume PR bods manage it somehow? But how?

Google looks at lots of different factors when deciding the position of a link in its search results for any search term. These include (but are not limited to):

• the authority of the website
• how many other websites link to that page and (crucially) how authoritative they are
• Where the search term appears on the page (eg is it in the title, how many times does it appear in the text)
• how old is the web page
• is the website's content regularly updated

Google doesn't publish the workings if its algorithm - but as there is huge commercial benefit to being at the top of the results, there is a whole industry (SEO) dedicated to working it out and gaming it.

In simple terms, MirrorrorriM, if your local paper published an article about you winning a prize to visit the set of Cats, then your name would come up on Google on a search of "MirrorrorriM" and "cats".

But then if a while later, your town was flooded and you were rescued by someone on a boat who took you and your cute cats to safety, and loads of news websites picked up on this as a human interest story, then your first story about the Cats experience would be pushed down the results. Google would prioritise all the stories about you and your cats being rescued because they were on websites with more authority (as large news outlets, not your local paper), because there were more links to the story and because it was more recent.

So, you can see how, if you did something you wanted to hide, you could try to game Google to hide the bad news.

If you look at everything he does, he is playing a game and in the process playing us all for fools. He never answers questions put to him in Parliament (just attacks the questioner instead). He uses insults regularly of anybody he disagrees with rather than explaining his opposing views. Yes, he uses the 'google trick'. He arranges photo shoots of himself and his partner looking 'lovey' just days after their fight while claiming he wants to be 'private'. He lies, claiming progress is being made in Europe re Brexit negotiations, while the people he is supposed to be negotiating with state clearly he is not in negotiation with them and nothing has moved on!
He is a manipulator, liar and unapologetic bully. It's all a game for him, pure naked personal ambition.
The Tories need to get rid of him and show the rest of the country they do not hold him up as their 'best of their best'. Their future is dire if they do not.

*AlunWynsKnee

It does seem convenient. Wonder what will be next. Children?*

Yes!

Expect a story about education set in a primary school, surrounded by kids, with a speech peppered with references to children.

I don't understand the children references? What have I missed?

Being Boris means always having someone to clear up after you.

This thread made me feel a bit sick and shaky, honestly, as if the fox were grinning at me from inside the henhouse.

He did an appearance yesterday with student police where he said he would rather be "dead in a ditch" than delay Brexit an hour after his brother quit. That's why. Then a woman fainted. It was actually bigger news than his run in with the police.

Here you go OP before it drops away

Everything Boris Johnson is doing, he has seen done by Trump before him. (Trump having taken his political tactics from some of the worst dictators in history).

Thanks MaxNormal.

Ah, child as in "love child". I see.

The other thing that stands out from his catalogue of lies in that article, is his claim that when he took cocaine aged 19, that it was "inconclusive".

What an odd way to describe taking drugs! In what was would you expect taking coke to be "conclusive"? What difference does it make if it's "inconclusive"?!

WTF is he talking about?!!

It's just meaningless bilge, isn't it?!

He had to say something, so he said something that means nothing.

OP re cocaine, it's because he sniffed it fully believing it to be cocaine, but found it was talcum powder.

So, playing with words. He intended to try cocaine.

Given that Cummings gamed the referendum result, I don’t know why anyone’s surprised at this.

Saffronesque, ah I see! That's quite funny tbh. bet he's taken coke he worked in the media FFS

an end to all this - Wrong! It is the START of years & years of negotiations + agony rather than leaving with a deal, which is years of negotiation + pain

Yes, I don't understand at all the people who say that they think leaving with No Deal is a good thing because they're sick of Brexit. No deal would drag this all out over decades!!

I wouldn't be at all surprised. Smacks of Dominic Cummings et al