Google Juice

Google Juice is the ethereal substance which flows between web pages via their hyperlinks (in both directions!). Pages with lots of links to them acquire much Google Juice; pages which link to highly juicy pages acquire some reflected Google Juice. Or something. The level of Google Juice in a page thus reflects how well connected it is, and thus, in our world where the interconnectedness of all things is paramount, how good it is (well, sort of).

• http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/google-juice.html
• http://slashdot.org/articles/02/03/13/141202.shtml?tid=95

The amount of Google Juice in a page is called 'Page Rank' by google.

Some thoughts on Google Juice:

• How much Google Juice does google have? Given that lots of people link to google, and google links primarily to juicy pages, it should have a lot.
• If a page has a lot of juice, it ranks highly, which means lots of people see it, which means they link to it, which makes it more juicy. Given the dominance of google, doesn't this make google's prophecies self-fulfilling? If i want a handy set if links on a subject, i google and pick the top five (barring obviously duff ones). Thus, i'm helping to reinforce this trend. -- TA
• The same thing seems to happen in science: <http://www.nature.com/nsu/030519/030519-6.html>. Basically, if a scientist sees that other scientists are citing some paper, he will cite it himself, even if he hasn't read it; thus, some entirely worthless papers may become highly cited, purely by chance.

Of course, there are some people who try to look for the inverse of Google Juice: a Google Whack.

OUSFG Wiki Has Google Juice. Awesoma powa!

News! Is Google EVIL? <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2786761.stm>

Is 'to Google' a trademark? (this linked from Slashdot...) <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0302D&L=ads-l&P=R2450>

Is Google to be trusted? The power to censor is a dangerous one... <http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/29442.html>

Google Juice is democratic: it puts total power into the hands of a small number of people who are approximately chosen by the masses. Hence, if the world says one thing and the chosen few say another, google reflects the latter: your search has been googlewashed. See <http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/30087.html>, <http://joi.ito.com/archives/2003/04/04/flattering_article_in_the_register_about_the_second_superpower_paper_and_googlewashing.html>, <http://slashdot.org/articles/03/04/03/2327239.shtml?tid=95> for details; the worst bit is that google has somehow got very keen on Web Logs, and it turns out that the 'chosen few' are the 'Web Log A-list'.

Googleholes - <http://slate.msn.com/id/2085668/>.

Googlebombing - <http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-bzgoog1206,0,2339508.story?coll=ny-business-headlines>, wherein the Web Log A-List sway Google into linking 'miserable failure' to GWB (see <google:miserable-failure>).

Google seems to alter its results based on your recent queries; try googling for lots of things about python, and then look up 'setrlimit' - you only get entries for setrlimit in the python libraries, not the original call in POSIX. A less obscure example would be good.

Do we need a fucking Category Google now or what? Please no.