15 replies to this topic

[diddy1]

Google just released a new algorithm just to remove Googlebombs the first one to go was Bush's "miserable failure". People are starting to get worried however if this will affect normal sites that just happen to get thousands of links with the same anchor text. Especially sites in a seo contest.

Thank You

[Adrian]

Especially sites in a seo contest.

Who cares? They are not 'normal sites', and I'd quite happily see them all completely removed from the index.

People are starting to get worried however if this will affect normal sites

Acrobat reader download page still seems to be number 1 for "click here".

[Nadir]

Well, from a SEO standpoint, this change shows that trying to get links for "cheap widgets" when "cheap widgets" never appears on your website will not be of any help anymore.

[JohnMu]

No, I think you're wrong on that, Nadir -- Anchor text optimization still works (see the [click here] query that Adrian mentioned). I think it is a very specific algorithm to target Googlebombs directly and not the other normal optimizations. I bet you could ... still "game" it, if you tried very carefully. But I bet it's much harder now and most likely not worth it any more.

At least we can tell our kids that we saw a Googlebomb first hand, back in the day ......

What was your favorite Googlebomb?

John

[rustybrick]

Got to love Bill's comment at SEL talking about the patent that may be involved in the algo change to make this happen...

[JohnMu]

I think Bill would read patents as bedtime stories to his kids . He's like a walking encyclopedia. Wow!

I also like the next comment:
"... I can neither conform nor deny ... "
That sounds almost staightforward, ha ha.
(why can't I select text from that page? grrr!)

John

[bragadocchio]

Thanks, Barry.

We don't know if the phrase indexing/bit vector approach is what has stopped google bombing, but it's an idea worth exploring.

I think Bill would read patents as bedtime stories to his kids

You have to know your audience. I wouldn't do that, or at least I wouldn't if they didn't like the patents.

[ktcleo]

why do Google go to so much effort to stop it? It was a bit of fun, provided publicity for them and didn't really effect normal search queries

[FP_Guy]

Sounds like that they may be putting more emphasis on keyword modifiers then for importance. If you have a anchor text link of 'web hosting' it probably will count the link if it has keyword modifiers like 'unix' or 'linux' or 'windows', etc.

Did I get that right?

[Wit]

why do Google go to so much effort to stop it? It was a bit of fun, provided publicity for them and didn't really effect normal search queries

Money? </speculation type=wild>

[bragadocchio]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "keyword modifiers" Michael.

But, if you mean that the anchor text pointing to the page needs to be text that appears on the page, or is somehow related to text that appears on the page, then yes.

[JohnMu]

How does that work for [click here]? How about (just very wild speculation) having to have "similar" anchor texts from within the same site?

John

[Wit]

Reports (on Threadwatch) suggest that it doesn't work for [click here] or [home]. Which is odd.

Could the new "algo" possibly include a hand-picked list of sites and/or search phrases?

</tin foil>

[JohnMu]

If they wanted to hand-pick, they would have done that a long time ago (and take less than two people's 20% time) ...

Maybe it takes the whole anchor text and compares the uniqueness of that? I bet there are lots of anchor texts that include "click here" but that are not only "click here" (more like "click here to install bla bla"). For a Gooblegomb it would be different; people would not link with "a miserable failure in iran" but rather almost always *only* use just "miserable failure".

Take a measure of link-variation and discount the links if there is not enough variation in them. That could backfire though

I am fairly certain that they put a lot of safeguards in place to make sure that it really only triggers for Gooblegomb attempts.. but how far can you go before it triggers? :naughty:

John

[AbleReach]

OT Aside --

I think Bill would read patents as bedtime stories to his kids

You have to know your audience. I wouldn't do that, or at least I wouldn't if they didn't like the patents.

LOL

When they're really really young, the care in your voice is what you know they'll get.

Watch out, though! When my daughter was a baby she loved for me to sing to her while I was driving. I sang about whatever came to mind, often whatever we were driving by or when it was time to put on the turn signal. On one occasion when she was around one year old I stopped at a red light and made a free right turn - completely legal. She howled with fear and pointed at the red light, yelling "Red, stop! Red, stop!" Before relaxing about turns @ red lights she needed a few weeks of more detailed singing about the rules of the road.

Soooo, if you ever sing to a small child about the ins and outs of Googlebombs, consider the implications from a pint-sized eye view. ;-)

[incrediblehelp]

It might have to do with the variance between other form of anchor text your websites has received as softplus has suggested. Again that wouldn't work either because I am sure the George Bush website had lots of different types anchor text and I doubt "miserable failure" was one of the highest %. Maybe I am wrong, maybe the anchor text "miserable failure" was one of the top ways to link to http://en.wikipedia..../George_W._Bush. Hard to tell without further research.

Edited by incrediblehelp, 26 January 2007 - 04:11 PM.