Mitt Romney might want to ask Rick Santorum for some helpful tips on how to deal with a pesky Google problem, now that "Romney" has become a very popular, Google-bombed joke.
Yes, it's a little bit immature, but search "Romney" on Google and you'll see spreadingromney.com high up on your results (right behind Mitt Romney's Wikipedia page this morning; image below) with this definition: "1. To defecate in terror 2. Former Governor Mitt Romney." This is a reference to "Crate-Gate," the story of how Romney's dog Seamus reacted to being strapped to the roof of the candidate's car.
As Santorum knows from his experience with his own Google-bombing, Google's algorithm depends a lot on popularity. And Spreading Romney's 3,416 Facebook "likes", 1261 Tweets, coupled with shoutouts from sites like New York's Daily Intel and Romney's not-so-solid inevitability as of late all helped it climb up the Google results chart. Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan noted one week ago that ninth seemed to be the most consistent position for the site. Not counting the news results, Romney's Google problem is the third result today.
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A new website SpreadingRomney.com now appears prominently among Internet search results for Mitt Romney's last name and defines ''romney'' as: "to defecate in terror". ''Spreading Romney'' was inspired by the santorum neologism coined in  Dan Savage's column '''' in response to comments made by former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum about homosexuality; Savage's readers voted to define ''santorum'' as: "the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex."

While defining ''romney'' as a , the word "terror" in the definition given at SpreadingRomney.com links to an article that appeared January 5 in '''' titled "Mitt Romney's Dog Incident Comes Back To Haunt Him". The article describes a 1983 incident where Romney was reported to have affixed his family’s pet  named Seamus to the roof of their vehicle for 12 hours while on a car trip to Canada; press coverage of the matter recounted how the animal let loose its bowels due to a fear response during the experience. 

Similar to online searches leading to the santorum neologism website originally created by Dan Savage, SpreadingSantorum.com, queries for Romney yielding top search results for SpreadingRomney.com are not limited only to Google but extend to other search engines including  as well.


'''' quoted search engine expert , who observed that the website had likely risen of late in search results: "I don’t recall seeing it recently, so it appears to be a new gain."

'''' reported that as of yesterday, SpreadingRomney.com had received 3,416  clicks from  and 1,261 posts on . The site appeared third in a Google search for Romney, directly below the former  Governor's Wikipedia page.

In a 2003 interview with the Associated Press, Rick Santorum compared legalizing  to supporting . Readers of the '''' advice column selected a new definition for the Senator’s last name, and Savage created a website SpreadingSantorum.com to promulgate the spread of the phenomenon. The term became a prominent result in searches online, and gained dominance on  including Google, Bing, and Yahoo!. 


Rick Santorum himself has acknowledged and discussed the existence and prevalence of the santorum neologism phenomenon; he was quoted by '''' on his assessment of Google's response: "To have a business allow that type of filth to be purveyed through their website or through their system is something that they say they can't handle. I suspect that's not true." Santorum criticized the response of the press to the phenomenon in a 2011 radio interview, saying, "It's offensive beyond, you know, anything that any public figure or anybody in America should tolerate, and the mainstream media laughs about it."

The company  manages the  for the website SpreadingRomney.com; the site was registered by an , Indiana-based company named Ayokay LLC which was formed on January 1. The website reportedly started operating on January 10.  commented upon it on January 12 on her program ''''. The founder of SpreadingRomney.com, Jack Shepler, informed Sullivan that he holds no ties to any political campaign group and formed the website out of a .

'''' noted that there may be another  this time derived from the last name of presidential candidate Newt Gingrich; linking to an established website for SpreadingGingrich.com. That site is currently asking visitors to submit suggestions for a new definition of ''gingrich''.