[curiousgal]

It is, but seeing it on HN made me think it was "ruin" along the lines of "throw off Google interest-based ads" not "get you on a list".

[nitrogen]

I didn't follow the original link, but maybe the point was to get lots of people on a list to show how silly lists are?

[curiousgal]

Maybe, but it depends on whether the location of the query is taken into account. In that case, the majority of the people who clicked through (which is based in the USA/Europe) won't get picked up as opposed to the small percentage of people located in the MENA area.

[vehementi]

I had to read until here in this very thread to get that