Google bombing, also known as Google washing, is the practice of causing a website to rank highly in web search engine results for irrelevant, unrelated or off-topic search terms. It is in contrast of search engine optimization (SEO), which is the practice of improving the search engine listings of web pages for relevant search terms.
Google-bombing is done for either business, political, or comedic purposes (or some combination thereof). Google's search-rank algorithm ranks pages higher for a particular search phrase if enough other pages linked to it use similar anchor text. By January 2007, however, Google had tweaked its search algorithm to counter popular Google bombs such as "miserable failure" leading to George W. Bush; now, search results list pages about the Google bomb itself. Used both as a verb and a noun, "Google bombing" was introduced to the New Oxford American Dictionary in May 2005..
Google bombing is related to spamdexing, the practice of deliberately modifying HTML to increase the chance of a website being placed close to the beginning of search engine results, or to influence the category to which the page is assigned in a misleading or dishonest manner. The term "Googlewashing" was coined by Andrew Orlowski in 2003 in order to describe the use of media manipulation to change the perception of a term, or push out competition from search engine results pages (SERPs).
History
Google bombs date back as far as 1999, when a search for "more evil than Satan himself" resulted in the Microsoft homepage as the top result.
In September 2000, the first Google bomb with a verifiable creator was created by Hugedisk Men's Magazine, a now-defunct online humor magazine, when it linked the text "dumb motherfucker" to a site selling George W. Bush-related merchandise. Hugedisk had also unsuccessfully attempted to Google bomb an equally derogatory term to bring up an Al Gore-related site. After a fair amount of publicity, the George W. Bush-related merchandise site retained lawyers and sent a cease and desist letter to Hugedisk, thereby ending the Google bomb.
Adam Mathes is credited with coining the term "Google bombing" when he mentioned it in an April 6, 2001, article in the online magazine uber.nu. In the article, Mathes details his connection of the search term "talentless hack" to the website of his friend, Andy Pressman, by recruiting fellow webloggers to link to his friend's page with the desired term. Some experts forecast that the practice of Google Bombing is over, as changes to Google's algorithm over the years have minimised the effect of the technique.
Uses as tactical media The Google Bomb has been used for tactical media as a way of performing a "hit and run" media attack on popular topics. Such attacks include Anthony Cox's attack in 2003. He created a parody of the "404 – page not found" browser error message in response to the war in Iraq. The page looked like the error page but was titled "These Weapons of Mass Destruction cannot be displayed". This website could be found as one of the top hits on Google after the start of the war in Iraq. English Disco Lovers was a Google bombing campaign to detract attention from the far-right group English Defence League (EDL) and replace it as the top search engine result for "EDL".
Alternative meanings The Google bomb is often misunderstood by those in the media and publishing industry who do not retain technical knowledge of Google's ranking factors. For example, talk radio host Alex Jones has often conducted what he calls "Google bombs" by dispatching instructions to his radio/Internet listeners.The New Activism — Alex Jones and the Next Phase of the InfoWar In this context, the term is used to describe a rapid and massive influx of keyword searches for a particular phrase. The keyword surge gives the impression that the related content has suddenly become popular. The strategy behind this type of Google bombing is to attract attention from the larger mainstream media and influence them to publish content related to the keyword.
Google bowling By studying what types of ranking manipulations a search engine is using, a company can provoke a search engine into lowering the ranking of a competitor's website. This practice, known as Google bowling or negative SEO, is often done by purchasing Google bombing services (or other SEO techniques) not for one's own website, but rather for that of a competitor. The attacker provokes the search company into punishing the "offending" competitor by displaying their page further down in the search results.
Other search engines Other search engines use similar techniques to rank results and are also affected by Google bombs. A search for "miserable failure" or "failure" on September 29, 2006, brought up the official George W. Bush biography number one on Google, Yahoo!, and MSN and number two on Ask.com. On June 2, 2005, Tooter reported that George Bush was ranked first for the keyword "miserable", "failure", and "miserable failure" in both Google and Yahoo!; Google has since addressed this and disarmed the George Bush Google bomb and many others.
The BBC, reporting on Google bombs in 2002, used the headline "Google Hit By Link Bombers", acknowledging to some degree the idea of "link bombing". In 2004, Search Engine Watch suggested that the term be "link bombing" because of its application beyond Google, and continues to use that term as it is considered more accurate.
By January 2007, Google changed its indexing structure so that Google bombs such as "miserable failure" would "typically return commentary, discussions, and articles" about the tactic itself. Google announced the changes on its official blog. In response to criticism for allowing the Google bombs, Matt Cutts, head of Google's Webspam team, said that Google bombs had not "been a very high priority for us".
Motivations
Competitions In May 2004, the websites Dark Blue and SearchGuild teamed up to create what they termed the "SEO Challenge" to Google bomb the phrase "nigritude ultramarine".
The contest sparked controversy around the Internet, as some groups worried that search engine optimization (SEO) companies would abuse the techniques used in the competition to alter queries more relevant to the average user. This fear was offset by the belief that Google would alter their algorithm based on the methods used by the Google bombers.
In September 2004, another SEO contest was created. This time, the objective was to get the top result for the phrase "seraphim proudleduck". A large sum of money was offered to the winner, but the competition turned out to be a hoax.
In March 2005's issue of .net magazine, a contest was created among five professional web developers to make their site the number-one site for the made-up phrase "crystalline incandescence".
Political activism
Some of the most famous Google bombs are also expressions of political opinions (e.g. "liar" leading to Tony Blair or "miserable failure" leading to the White House's biography of George W. Bush):
In 2003, Steven Lerner, creator of Albino Blacksheep, created a parody webpage titled "French Military Victories". When typed into Google, the first result (or the "I'm Feeling Lucky" result) led to a webpage resembling a Google error message, reading, "Your search – French military victories – did not match any documents. Did you mean French military defeats?" The page received over 50,000 hits within 18 hours of its release. Links near the top of the page led to a simplified list of French military history. The only war listed as a win for the French was the French Revolution, in which they fought themselves. As of May 2, 2011, the page is no longer listed in Google's first few results for "French military victories", but several links on the list go to sites recounting the joke.(payment required, link goes to abstract) October 1, 2007 In 2003, columnist Dan Savage began his campaign to define the word "santorum" after former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum made several controversial statements regarding homosexuality. A search for "santorum" led to the top result being a website defining it as being related to anal sex. One search engine expert has argued that this campaign does not qualify as a Google bomb, arguing that it is instead a successful new definition for a word explained by a website. (see search engine optimization) In 2004, Jewish writer and activist Daniel Sieradski urged visitors to his blog to link to the Wikipedia article for "Jew" in response to findings, first publicized by Steven Weinstock, that a search for "Jew" returned the anti-Semitic website Jew Watch at the top of the results. The campaign was successful in displacing the site from the top result. In the same year, the Persian Gulf naming dispute was the subject of a Google bomb by an Iranian blogger named Pendar Yousefi. In France, groups opposing the DADVSI copyright bill, proposed by minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, mounted a Google bombing campaign linking ministre blanchisseur ("laundering minister") to an article on Donnedieu de Vabres' conviction for money laundering. The campaign was so efficient that , merely searching for ministre ("minister") or blanchisseur ("launderer") brings up a news report of his conviction as one of the first results. In December 2004, the "Yan Ang Pinay" ("I am a Filipina") campaignYan Ang Filipina Archived Retrieved 22 October 2009 encouraged bloggers to self-identify as Filipina and link the word Filipina to target URLs such as the Filipina Women's Network (ffwn.org), to displace mail-order bride sites in search results. In November 2005, after the controversy that erupted in the Philippines over the allegations that former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo had cheated in the 2004 elections, bloggers led by Raymond Palatino of Kabataan Partylist, made the phrase "pekeng pangulo" (Tagalog for fake president) was linked to her official website (kgma.org). A similar attack has been made for the keyword "sinungaling" (liar in Tagalog) to then Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye's profile; "bugaw" (pimp in Tagalog) for then National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales on a page on i-site.ph, administered by Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism; "sira-ulo" (literally translates as "screwed up in the head" or "crazy" in Tagalog) to the Department of Justice (presumably an attack to then Secretary of Justice Raul M. Gonzalez), and previously "bangungot ng bayan" (Tagalog for "the nation's nightmare") for a website for the Freedom, Peace and Justice Movement (FPJM), a group supportive of the 2004 presidential run of Fernando Poe Jr - the initials spell the same as the acronym. In 2005, an Estonian blogger led a successful campaign to link the word masendav (Estonian for dismal or depressive) to the homepage of Estonian Centre Party. The Centre Party's website still ranks first in the results for masendav . In the 2006 U.S. midterm elections, many left-wing bloggers, led by MyDD.com, banded together to propel neutral or negative articles about many Republican House candidates to the top of Google searches for their names. Also in 2006, Siedziba szatana (Satan's headquarters) was linked to the website of controversial Polish ultra-conservative Catholic broadcaster Radio Maryja. In or before 2007, Finnish Minister of Culture Tanja Karpela was subject to a Google bombing in which the search turha lehmä ("useless bitch", lit. "useless cow") returned her web home page. Non-fiction author suggested that the Google bomb might have been done in response to Karpela's participation in revising Finnish copyright law. The web site for the Parliament of Finland was also Google-bombed with the search term mordorin linna ("Castle of Mordor"). In March 2007, The Washington Post reported that Nikolas Schiller was able to Google bomb "Redacted Name" to highlight his website's block on search engines.