You're absolutely spot on...the problem is that we often don't have time or motivation to challenge what we see...which is why headline-writing can so easily color opinions of an entire article body. Even in this case, even when I knew this blog post was part of a smear campaign, some reflex in me instinctively mused, "Hmm, maybe this guy is bad...look at all the words devoted to him".
Now imagine any given employer or background-checker seeing this, without the context of the OP...what are the chances that they'll be skeptical of the smear campaign?
But because as humans, we have limited time/energy/patience...computers and sound algorithms really are one of our best allies in rooting this kind of thing out. I'm just surprised that Google's ranker hadn't already flagged this...It's a single-post blog with a circle-jerk of links to other single-use blogs, with the kind of keyword stuffing that was common in the AltaVista days...and I'm pretty sure the text is verbatim from other such smear sites. Isn't that enough penalty to take the site down from the top of the SERPs?
I would rather see a system based on digital signatures, with keys tied to identities. If you are checking someone's reputation you should be able to check the identity of people who are making claims about them -- are they former employers, jilted lovers, or did they choose to remain anonymous? I want to know what former employers and coworkers have to say; I do not want to know what an ex-boyfriend masquerading as a former coworker says. If we could establish a mentality of checking for a signature from a verifiable key before assuming that a statement is true it would go a long way toward solving this problem.
Of course, this comes with problems as well. How do you verify public keys? Web of trust systems do not seem to work in practice; people do not have the time. A CA model would allow a central authority to silence people who say the wrong things by denying them verification. The system cannot be like SSH, because you need a way to verify keys from people you have not yet contacted.
I agree that search engines should be working toward a solution, but in this case that would not have been enough. This stalker went as far as sending messages to the victims' employers.
Now imagine any given employer or background-checker seeing this, without the context of the OP...what are the chances that they'll be skeptical of the smear campaign?
But because as humans, we have limited time/energy/patience...computers and sound algorithms really are one of our best allies in rooting this kind of thing out. I'm just surprised that Google's ranker hadn't already flagged this...It's a single-post blog with a circle-jerk of links to other single-use blogs, with the kind of keyword stuffing that was common in the AltaVista days...and I'm pretty sure the text is verbatim from other such smear sites. Isn't that enough penalty to take the site down from the top of the SERPs?