Wired (via Ben Smith) has a great point about Obama's launch of the site:

[mystieus]

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0608/Fighting_smears_gaming_Google.html

By putting their own website out there front-and-center, and then getting everybody to link to it (starting with all the media covering the launch of the site), the result will be to drive fightthesmears.com towards the top of a Google search on, say, "obama muslim" or "michelle obama whitey". Ideally, if enough of the pro-Obama network links to fightthesmears.com, it'll drive the sites that peddle in the rumor-mongering, which are now the first results on said searches, off the top of the results list. Ideal long term result: any curious low-information voter who eventually bothers to google these pesky rumors will immediately be led to the debunking rather than the rumor.

My take: Did the Obama campaign create fightthesmears.com to game Google? If so, they're even more net-savvy than folks give them credit for.

By launching it in the media, buying google ad linking to it and working the netroots to like to the site, Obama might be able to re-direct search results to his site. Obama's team is good.

[zulchzulu]

1. The Obama campaign has a lot of geekcred

I've met a few of the people and a fair amount of them have computer science backgrounds...

[blogslut]

2. Linking is vital

If you own a website or run a blog, link to www.fightthesmears.com. Google loves links.

[enki23]

3. wouldn't the link have to contain the keywords you want google to direct to it?

eg.
Obama is not a Muslim
Michelle Obama did not use the word "whitey" on tape

[blogslut]

4. It sure helps

If you have a blog, most of them are set up so you can include alternate text for outside links on your blogroll. Or you can go old school and wrap the link around a text phrase.

[Jersey Devil]

5. Good idea - done

[Indenturedebtor]

6. Well we should help them out with it.

How about link drives eh?