101 Articles Google Bomb
GOOGLE BOMB
Google Bomb is an issue faced by many well reputed and organized websites. The whole concept started a decade ago where a search for "more evil than Satan himself" text led to the Microsoft homepage. It is an action where certain specific sites are found using certain specific texts that is totally irrelevant to the contents of that particular website. Google Bombing is basically done by a group of people where they link to a specific chosen webpage using a specific chosen link text in order to manipulate the search engines and push the webpage up in terms of Google Ranking. The reasons for it are many such as political issues, discrediting a person or a particular company's website or just for the fun as a part of search engine optimization challenge.
Google bomb as a biggest headache to SEO's and genuine websites:
Originally the whole concept was done by a group of people to target certain websites or just for fun as a part of SEO challenge. But then in the last decade, Google bomb concept has been found to be very manipulative and thus the same groups of people have started to take initiatives to manipulate search engines and get a good ranking for websites and be listed among the top 10 related to a text.
The relevance of the search text doesn't matter anymore as certain keywords alone are enough for that particular website to appear among the top 10 lists.
It is a poor man's route adopted by certain groups of people and website owner to optimize their webpages. Usually the same web owners who practice this concept do not have enough resources to advertise on other sites or buy advertisement spaces, doesn't get inward links from other sites, or has useless contents and relies heavily upon traffic to come and hit Adsense ads in their respective websites for revenue generation.
Spammers today follow a very common technique of creating several blog accounts under fake identities and use the concept of GoogleBomb to optimize their blog pages, manipulating search engines and being listed among the top 10 links at most times. Every time viewers log into their webpages they tend to generate good click rates and increase the ranking of their websites or blogs. Moreover, having Adsense ads in their blogs generates tremendous amount of income for them for every click. Imagine having 10 different blog identities generating a fair amount of income for the spammer and how it affects the market drastically. Many SEO's have been facing the same issues heavily as they have found to be cheated and manipulated. Being an expert I have come across a similar site. I hacked into one of the eBooks where the owner have claimed to have earned consistent hits using the GoogleBomb concept which has pushed his website upwards in terms of Google Ranking. Of course he hasn't mentioned it explicitly. The same book has been brought or hacked and thus several million people have access to this particular eBook every time they enter the particular respective link text. Also people who do not have the finance to avail the services of SEO for websites also purchase these kinds of eBooks and employ Google Bombing strategies to optimize the website and get income out of it and develop their online business.
It is in a way manipulating search engines algorithms as the Google search rank algorithm ranks a particular webpage higher for a particular search phrase if enough number of other pages linked to it uses similar anchor text. The concept is basically done for business, political and fun purposes although the business part of it dominates as most people tend to develop their online business.
GoogleBomb is also closely related to spamdexing which also deals with practice of deliberately modifying HTML pages to optimize the website increasing their chances of being listed in the beginning of search engine results. It manipulates search engine algorithms and influences them to rate the website higher in terms of ranking and automatically being listed in the top 10. The website is assigned such a rank due to misleading and dishonest practices such as GoogleBomb.
It is creating havoc amongst many companies including Google itself. If Google does not combat this issue and find ways to eliminate such practices and by doing so if they do tend to ban websites which appears in the top 10 list for absurd obscure phrases, then the conspiracy theory states that SEO companies can do the same concept in order to let down competitor's websites for their own benefit which creates a war amongst all organizations including search engine organizations, SEO's, web developers, freelancers etc leading to a total chaotic situation.
The whole concept of ranking a webpage based on keywords relevant to that webpage which also turns out to be a similar search phrase has worked out fine until GoogleBomb added exception to it. It was an exception to the rule followed by search engine algorithms to rank a particular webpage based on number of meaningful links, number of hits it receives and sufficient keyword stuffing. A keyword should basically be closely related to the contents of the webpage and targeted via hyperlinks. GoogleBomb is the concept of making a page rank high for a relatively uncompetitive phrase that is absolutely unrelated to the webpage and its contents.
Google seriously needs to look into two factors to combat the problem
1. The number of links that contain the phrase
2. Thoroughly go through the contents of every website that has been directed by GoogleBombing.
Will Combating GoogleBombing Affect SEO's/Link Efforts?
A change in the search engine algorithms is suggested to combat GoogleBomb concept and Google has already started to take remedial measures. As long as SEO companies build their websites using relevant links and relevant keywords or phrases they need not worry about anything including the conspiracy theory.
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Screen Shots |
The image is a screen shot from Wikipedia that shows an example of Google bomb that had occurred in the year 2005, creating damage to search engine rankings. And infact this file was available in the Google search till March 31, 2013.
The above screen shot explains that Google bomb is not only created by hackers or spammers but is also attempted by billion dollar companies in order to increase the search engine rankings of their sites. An example of such an attempt of Google bomb is mentioned.
Reappearance of Google bomb:
It is observed that an attempt to Google bomb was reappeared in the year 2007 for the word "Failure" brought the results President of United states description.
The screen shot explains measures taken by Google in order to eradicate Google bombs. It has come up with the new algorithm update which will minimize the impact of Google bomb and eventually put a stop to it.
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Working Examples |
Google Bomb
Google bombing is a technique of obtaining a desired PageRank for a website/webpage in search engines that it should not rank for, by creating numerous backlinks to the page using the term as anchor text. Web pages that Google bombed do not contain even a single keyword for which they are ranked so high. It is a strange manipulation tactic adopted by spammers to manipulate the search engine rankings.
The below mentioned screen shots are few examples of Google bombs that have occurred in the recent years and have manipulated the search engine rankings.
Example 1:
The above example of Google bomb shows that French term which means "Asshole of the internet" redirects to Nicolas sarkozy's Facebook profile page which actually has no connection with the keywords entered.
Example 2:
The term "terrorist sympathizer" was used to create a Google bomb against the most outspoken political commentator Bill O'Reilly in November 2005.
Example 3:
The term "dangerous cult" was used against the Church of scientology's homepage in the early 2008 to manipulate the search engine rankings.
Example 4:
In the year 2005, the keyword "liar" was used against Tony Blair in a Google bombing campaign. The term was used to bomb the search engine by linking the official biography of the UK Prime minister.
Example 5:
The world famous Google bomb occurred in the year 2005, when the term "miserable failure" brought up George Bush's biography page. The page contained no words such as miserable failure but still the page appeared the in the top rankings in Google. This was the effect of Google bomb.
Google Bomb no longer exists:
Google bomb is now monitored by strict algorithm updates launched by Google in order to reduce the impact of Google bomb, which is a shameful Search engine manipulation strategy.
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References |
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Other sites that refer to the same manipulation tactic are as follows |
