Google bombing is endeavoring to get a web page ranked highly for a phrase by persuading websites to link to the page using the phrase as the words in the link.

Adam Mathes apparently invented the practise in 2001. He persuaded blog owners to link to a friend's site using the phrase "talentless hack".

Here's another example. If you type the phrase "miserable failure" into Google, you may see George W. Bush's biography as the first entry on the search results page.

The technique works because Google places a lot of importance on "anchor text", the clickable words in a link.

You can use this fact to help your pages rank highly in search engines. When asking other sites to link to you, provide them with a snippet of HTML code to paste into their pages. With any luck, they'll use it unchanged.

However, don't make the anchor text exactly the same in all links. To search engines, that would look like an artificial link structure.


Google bombing works at MSN and Yahoo!

I've just checked. If you type "miserable failure" into the search box at Google, Yahoo! and MSN today, the Bush biography is the No.1 ranking site on all three major search engines.

This was true when I tested it in February 2005 and again in December 2005.

So choosing your anchor text carefully is still very important for all three main search engines.


2007 Update

In January, 2007, Google wrote an algorithm which reduced the impact of many prank Google bombs, where people linked to pages which did not contain the phrase used in the links. So when linking to any page, always use relevant phrases.


Search engine tips

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