Google Defuses Link Bombs - Why Google Defused the Link Bomb
(Page 3 of 4 )
One or two high profile cases did not push Google to tinker with their algorithm, but by this time "left" leaning bloggers had started linking GOP candidates to negative articles about them -- and the bloggers actually called it Search Engine Optimization! It was outright manipulation of SERPs in true SEO style, but obviously Google did not find it funny.
Fifty Republican candidates were targeted in this campaign, set up by Chris Bowers of http://www.mydd.com/. They put the names of their Republican targets as anchor texts to the articles they wanted to link to, and they chose relatively low profile candidates because high profile candidates would have heavyweight sites already listing for them as key words on the SERPs. They even intended to start AdWord campaigns for high profile candidates. This kind of manipulation obviously made the Google software engineering team take a long hard look at their algorithms.
How Does This Affect You
How will this search engine algorithm change affect your honest linking strategy? Probably not much, as far as linking goes, unless Google discovers an obvious fraud such as link farming, or some forms (not all) of spamdexing, they will not take too much out of your Page Rank. Whether your linking is deliberate or not, the bot's job is to count the links; it will take a human eye to notice whether anything is amiss. However we will look more deeply into this when we see how a Link Bomb is set up.
How to Set Up a Link Bomb for Yourself
Cost = Free (most times)
Category = Link Trading
Difficulty = N/A
Duration = Varies With Blog Network
Pros = If content is relevant, Matt Cutts (top Google spam buster) won't ban you.
Cons = If no relevant content, you will get banned for link spamming!
It's like Search Engine Optimization 101. Once your site is set up you start blogging, build up a community and encourage them to add links to your site (discourage "no follow" links). The politicians do it, and it can actually get very technical when you start calculating IP addresses, anchor text and relevant content found on the referring link page. Please note, this is different from just plain "link farming" which will get you banned.
Now the key factor in setting up your own Google Bomb is the "anchor text." For example, hardware is the anchor text I'm using with this link for findcomputerstuff.com here. The "miserable failure" bomb was not due to the content on the White House biography; it was simply that bloggers used the words "miserable" and "failure" to anchor links to the biography page.
Note that the above is not really a link bomb, it's more of a "one way link trade." A real Link Bomb is done to boost another site's ranking for either a negative (mostly) or positive key word. Matt Cutts says about Google Bombs, "A Google bomb is when you're trying to cause 'someone else's' site to rank for phrases like "враг народа" or "talentless hack" or "mouton insignificant" or whatever."
Next: The Anchor is the Detonator >>
More Google Optimization Articles
More By Akinola Akintomide
/ 13 
