Search Engines

Ghouls, Witches, and Goblins Mean that Holiday Must be around the Corner: Election Day

By Justin Seibert| 2 Min Read | October 25, 2006

Junk flyers in your mailbox. Telephone calls at dinner time. Mudslinging tv and radio ads. We’ve all been subjected to these types of marketing campaigns for politicians for years. Like most forms of marketing, we’re receptive to some more than others.

But political marketers – although right now it seems to manifest itself at the grass roots level – have a new arrow in their quiver: Google bombing. Google bombing consists of selecting a search term or search phrase, usually negative, and getting a site that you do not own or manage to rank highly in the search engines for that phrase.

The most famous example is “miserable failure”. If you do a Google search for “miserable failure”, you will see the first link shows up is George W. Bush’s bio page on the official White House Web site. Similar tactics have been used to push up Web sites for John Kerry and Al Gore for “waffles” and “miserable loser”, respectively.

Here’s how it works. Search engine optimization, or seo, is the process of getting Web sites to rank higher across the major search terms for various terms. While Google, Yahoo!, and MSN’s Live.com all have different formulae for ranking sites, they all use a large number of variables – up to 100 or more – to determine their rankings.

Even though the formulae, or algorithms, are all different, two items weigh heavily in their rankings: relevant content, and link quantity / quality.

Google bombing focuses heavily on the second item. By getting hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands of sites and blogs to write some text with the keyword in question and then link that keyword to the site they’re targeting, they can achieve their desired effect.

Today comes news of bloggers trying to band together to Google bomb George Allen’s campaign. The goal of the allied bloggers is to get an unflattering CBS news article to return the top ranking when a user searches for “George Allen”.

Google says it has changed its algorithm to make such bombing more difficult. Will the bloggers succeed? Track it yourself. Do a “George Allen” search on Google over the next couple weeks until election day to see what shows up.


justin-seibert-headshot

Written by Justin Seibert

Justin Seibert is the President of Direct Online Marketing. Justin holds a Bachelor of Arts from Vanderbilt University. He contributes a wide range of online business-oriented topics, including the subject of exporting. His contributions can be found on publications such as the Pittsburgh Business Times, AdAge, SES Magazine, and La Voz del interior. Justin and his family enjoy learning about new cultures during their travels.

View Justin Seibert's Full Bio

Related Articles

All Blogs
B2B SEO Services - What Can They Do For Your Company?
By Jonathan Bentz| 7 Min Read | January 13, 2023

What Can B2B SEO Services Do For Growing Companies?

Do you ever feel like B2B SEO services are comparable to one of those puzzles…

Read Article right arrow
What is historical optimization, and why should I do it
By Chris Loren| 10 Min Read | November 28, 2022

What is Historical Optimization, and Why Should I Do It?

Historical optimization is one of the most powerful tools in our SEO arsenal. It revives…

Read Article right arrow
Internal Links SEO - How Much Do They Still Matter In 2022?
By Jonathan Bentz| 17 Min Read | November 10, 2022

How Much Do Internal Links Affect SEO? (UPDATED November 2022)

Every business on the planet wants their website to rank number one for every keyword…

Read Article right arrow