Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your website

Googlebombing and “Miserable Failure”

Gather ‘round, readers and we’ll tell you a story about something that happened a long, long time

ago, way back in 2003. It seems there was a man—a right powerful man named George W. Bush—

and a few hundred people who didn’t like him very much.These people put links on their websites

that looked a little something like this:

<a href=“www.whitehouse.gov/president/gwbbio.html”>miserable

failure</a>

Yep, it’s so old and so often told that it’s something of a campfire tale these days: Enough websites

linked to George W. Bush’s biography using the words “miserable failure”in their anchor text that

the page ranked #1 for the term on Google. It’s an extreme case, and it’s not a very competitive

keyphrase, but it’s still a great illustration of how inbound link text can affect ranking.

Googlebombing,or

link bombing

,as this practice is called, has become a fixture in Web culture.

Other “victims,” including politicians, filmmakers, and even just friends of mischief-makers, have

claimed the number one spot for words like “liar”and “talentless hack,”and there have been new

waves of “miserable failures”as well.The SEO community has sponsored and gleefully participated

in contests to manipulate ranks for nonsense terms such as “nigritude ultramarine.”

It’s a subject of some controversy, raising questions of whether the search engines should strike

these kinds of pranks from their results, whether it’s just harmless fun, and whether it still works

the way it used to back in the day.Whatever your opinion on the subject, if you’re willing to dig

deep and check in on the latest in link bombing hijinks, you can glean some great insight on the

current effect that inbound link text has on ranks.

Age of domain

In one of the more perplexing and frustrating developments in SEO in

recent years, site owners have noticed that newer domains have a much tougher time

making their way up the ranks than older ones. Read more about this in the sidebar

“The Google Sandbox.” So far, this phenomenon has only been spotted in Google, but

you know what happens when Google does something: Sooner or later the others are

likely to follow suit. You have been warned.

Lesser factors

There are a large number of additional, lesser factors that can influence

your ranking. Google, for example, probably includes hundreds and possibly even

thousands of factors in its algorithm. Things like keywords in your meta tags, image

ALT tags, and page URL all have some degree of influence, as do factors that may be

harder for you to control, such as the popularity of a page (as measured by the search

engine’s own click-through tallies) or how often it is updated. For a comprehensive list

of ranking factors, including commentary from several knowledgeable SEO profession-

als, see this page:

www.seomoz.org/articles/search-ranking-factors.php

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