(Image source from: www.theweek.in)

Even though sometimes Google results might be interesting or entertaining, they can also be quite controversial.

Politicians globally have at all times have been the laughing stocks on the internet and the search engine giant Google bombs are to an increasing extent turning out to be one of the most popular ways of doing so.

Google-bombing is the act of causing a specific search result to be shown higher in the list of results of substantially neither here nor there and unfitting queries for comedic or political purposes.

Known as 'search engine bombs' prior to when Google became the universal search engine, Google bombs gained mainstream popularity in 2007.

Below are 10 of the most prominent political Google bombs:

'Top 10 Criminals' - Narendra Modi, Along with Terrorists

In June 2015, a search for the query 'top 10 criminals' showed among a list of most sought-after terrorists, dictators, and some other criminals, the name and picture of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

However, Google was soon prompted to issue an apology citing erroneous information from a British daily.

'Idiot' - Donald J. Trump

In July 2018, the United States President Donald Trump turned out to be a victim of the notorious Google bombs.

A search for the query 'idiot' showing pictures of Trump led the Judiciary Committee to launch a probe into the workings of Google and even called in Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai for a hearing.

'Complete Wrong' - Mitt Romney

Republican nominee Mitt Romney, during the months leading up to the presidential election in 2012, showed up at the top result for the search query 'completely wrong'.

This came about in light of some political remarks made by Romney in a blog post in October, in which he stated that 47 percent of Americans were "victims" and were dependent on the government. The 'completely wrong' string was linked with these comments due to Google's algorithms picking it up from various news reports.

'Santorum' - Rick Santorum

Earlier in 2003, Congressman Rick Santorum made a series of homophobic comments, as consequence, a columnist named Dan Savage shortly launched a campaign to define the word 'Santorum' in relation to the Congressman's anti-homosexual nature.

This led to a search for the word 'santorum' being linked with anal sex.

'Plagiator' - Victor Ponta

Earlier in 2012, the search query 'plagiator', which is the Romanian word for 'cheater', yielded results showing then-Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta, whose Ph.D. thesis was allegedly plagiarized.

The row surrounding the thesis was widely reported in Romania at the time. The subsequent Google bomb resulted in it being a whole other news story itself.

'Miserable Failure' - George W. Bush

During the 2004 presidential race, George W. Bush was infamously bombed on Google with the query 'miserable failure' linking to his official White House web page.

It was one of the bombs that stood the test of time as it was only removed in 2007.

'Waffles' - John Kerry

In 2004, a law student from Duquesne University, Ken Jacobson successfully bombed then-senator John Kerry by linking him to the search query 'waffles'.

This is said to be an outcome of the Democrats' Google-bombing of George W. Bush which took place the same year. The word 'waffling' is used to describe a person who is incapable of sticking with one decision.

'Failure' - Barack Obama

Shortly after the former senator assumed office in 2009, amateur hackers had managed to redirect all of Obama's predecessor Bush's Google bomb links to his name.

This meant search queries 'miserable failure' and even just 'failure' led to Obama's White House page.

'Buffone' - Silvio Berlusconi

In April 2006, a search query for 'Buffone', the Italian word for 'clown', linked to the website of then Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, a man whose term in office had been involved in controversy since taking oath in 1994.

'Trou du cul du web' - Nicolas Sarkozy

This literally translates to 'asshole of the web'.

The phrase was one of the search queries whose results yielded the then French president Nicolas Sarkozy's website in 2009. In 2010, the same query showed the first result as Sarkozy's Facebook page.

-Sowmya Sangam