Rick Santorum solves his Google problem The hijacked Google search was the result of a campaign by sex columnist and gay rights campaigner Dan Savage, who declared war on the socially conservative senator after Mr Santorum said homosexual sex was "antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family" in a 2003 interview. Despite repeated requests from Mr Santorum's aides, Google refused to remove the website from its listings, prompting the former Pennsylvania senator to accuse the California-based search engine of having a liberal "political agenda." In recent weeks however, Mr Santorum's campaign website has crept above the sex term on Google's listings and on Friday one of his aides declared victory. "The word Santorum is more relevant to Rick's campaign," said Peter Pasi, a digital consultant on Mr Santorum's staff. We're obviously a major player now. Google's rankings are based largely on the prominence of websites that link to a particular site. As Mr Santorum's campaign grew in prominence its website has been increasingly linked to by major traffic drivers like the New York Times and the Drudge Report.