slimster.net

I no more than write the headline and I already become worried that someone will mistake this post for something other than a reflection on a nerdy Internet pasttime – “Google Bombing”. Last week after my SEO Presentation at the Atlanta Web Entrepreneurs April Meetup, I took questions from the audience and one of the questions was about the practice of Google Bombing. I was asked whether I had ever been Google Bombed.

“Google Bombing” is when a group of webmasters gets together and uses their websites to unpleasantly describe someone else’s website in a “group effort” sort of way. Using well chosen, descriptive text in hyperlinks, every webmaster uses the same phrase to link to the target website. If the evil plan succeeds, Google will return the targeted website in a top position for the chosen phrase. It’s the online version of getting your house “rolled” with TP.

The most famous example of a Google bomb was when George Bush’s biography was the top search result for the query “miserable failure”. To be fair, Michael Moore was #2, proving that any side can play. Jimmy Carter was #3. It was a spectacle of widespread manipulation of the search engines – and it was pretty funny. Google finally stepped in and did a repair job so the BBC news is now #1 for the term “miserable failure”. Now it’s fixed.

Anyway, my answer to the question was basically that I really wouldn’t know. If someone Google bombed me for the term, “curly headed bozo“, for instance, I would not be aware of this because I wouldn’t be searching for the term curly headed bozo. That’s when I spotted Rusty Zarse giggling and mumbling from his front row position. I envisioned that toad licking code magician ensuring my rise to fame with a Google Bomb of his own.

I certainly don’t condone Google bombing and wouldn’t encourage anyone to participate in Internet TP games. The fact that I wrote a fairly obcure term such as toad licking code magician and put a strong tag in a hyperlink pointing to Rusty’s site, doesn’t necessarily mean that I would be attempting to Google Boom Boom Rusty Zarse for the term, “toad licking code magician”.

Lately, Google has been turning up the heat on those who buy and sell links and want people to report websites that engage in either activity. Google bombing is the other end of the spectrum. If people can link to your site, using any word, and can potentially influence the rank of your site for that word, should the target site not be able to negate the effect of those links? That would actually be good for the websites and not just Big-G (you know I love you, G) What would a toad licking code magician think?

I read an interesting post from one of my favorite “black hat” SEO gurus today. There is an SEO contest, initiated by threadwatch.com, which is giving away a whopping $1k for being #1 on Google for the term “Dave Pasternack”. An article by Mr. Pasternack got under the skins of some SEO’s when he claimed that SEO was “not rocket science”, among other things. Apparently, this contest was to poke fun and harass Dave for making sweeping, negative comments about SEOs. It turns out that someone else named Dave Pasternack, a Master Chef in NYC, is getting his site kicked to the curb as a result.

First, I would like to repeat the statement that SEO is not rocket science – just like accounting is not rocket science, nor is gardening, painting or playing music. It is what it is. Besides, I have worked with a rocket scientist-turned-programmer and that man was a bone-headed assclown (thanks again, Greg…and no offense to other rocket scientists).

Some SEOs are infinitely more effective than others and no one should be insulted by the rocket science statement. The rock stars are making more than any rocket scientist anyway. Frankly, I try to de-mystify SEO at my job. Will that cost me job security? Hell no. I have experience and a proven track record. When my colleagues understand how SEO works, the more success we will have as a team.

But back to Greg Boser and his post. What Greg has suggested is that when the contest is over, people 301 redirect their web pages back to the chef Dave Pasternack’s site. That is very admirable. And hopefully this will happen to a large degree and no one will suffer because of a silly SEO contest. What is especially sweet about Greg’s post is that Mr. Boser is known as a “black hat SEO”, which is also synonymous with “unethical” in come circles. Kudos Greg, this is not only ethical, it’s admirable. And not a bad link magnet either.

There has been a lot of attention paid to the effectiveness of “paid” links to a website’s SEO success. In a recent post by Matt Cutts, he makes a point about how companies tout their paid links as “undetectable” when, indeed, the Google crew is able to filter them. Matt has mentioned in the past about detecting “networks” and devaluing those networks and the links they produce. So what links actually count?

The answer, as usual, is ‘it depends’. But I think the key to detectability is the “network”. Who knows how long it will be before Google recognizes Text-Link-Ads and devalues those listed in that network? It just depends on whether Google sees that company as a threat to it’s relevancy algorithm. Think of it this way – a brothel is much easier to discover than a lone prostitute simply because of the traffic. The question is, how far will Google go to “clean up the streets”? To take the analogy further, how will Google determine the difference between a ‘paid’ relationship or just a really expensive date – or will they bother with this determination? Google treats the Yahoo directory as a high class date. Given their earlier attempts to make all of their search listings paid, I tend to think of Yahoo as a whore…ok, maybe just a mistress.

As long as there is a relationship between linking and SEO success, there will be those that buy and sell links for cash. Linking is a commodity. What will be interesting to see is how Google polices this commodity.