Internet Marketing
SEO Articles

Google Bombing

Description: Google bombing sounds like a dubious activity and in reality that's exactly what it is. Find out more about it below.

As long as there are websites on the internet and webmasters desperate to get them ranked higher in search results, there will always be tricks and methods that are used to achieve exactly that.

But not all search engine optimization methods are used to get a webmaster's own site ranked higher. Google bombing is a technique that aims to get a specific web page ranked extremely high in search results for a specific reason. In order to do this you must have two things in place:

• You must link to the same web page from a variety of different sites - the more you can link from the better
• The link text used must be the same on every site performing this action

This method has often been used to the detriment of others; perhaps the most famous example was when a certain detrimental phrase was linked to a website about George W. Bush.

It's clear that the main reason for trying to set off Google bombs is not a monetary one. Most of the time people do it to make a point, and it has nothing to do with their own website.

It is possible to create a Google bomb which does promote your own site however, because the nature of the link text really doesn't matter. What matters is the fact that the link text must be exactly the same on every site that takes part in the activity, and the same page is linked into every time. ?What this means is that you could decide you want to have the words ?most popular sci-fi site' linked to your small site about science fiction, and you could set off a Google bomb to try and ensure you rank very highly on that particular search term.

Most Google bombs rely on getting other people to help you set it off. If you have half a dozen websites yourself then you can put a link on each one, but Google bombs become ever more powerful the more links you can create. This is why lots of webmasters trying to set one off will make a request on their blog or in forums, asking people to help them and giving specific instructions on what they need to do.

However as far as search engine optimization techniques go, Google bombing is perhaps not surprisingly a practice you should steer clear of if you want to stick with techniques that will keep you on the right side of the search engines. We all want to rank highly for the keywords and phrases which best describe our site but we want to do so legally and honestly, without any risk of being blacklisted as a consequence of trying to manipulate the results.

In short, Google bombing is a fascinating subject to read about, but as far as taking part in it is concerned, make sure you leave it to other people and steer well clear of it yourself.