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NA at na
06 December 2006 14:20pm
Hi
This is very light hearted but I would really like to know.
If you type in f**kwit into google the top search result is “Biography of John Prescott”. That’s funny in itself but it's coming from the PM’s own Website.
I've looked in the code and I can't find any reference to "f**kwit"
Someone please tell me how this is done.
Thanks
Miles
E-Business Consultant at Dan Barker
06 December 2006 14:49pm
hi, Miles, how are you?
This is quite a common practice called google bombing. point enough links at a page with the terms you want in the link text, and that page will move up the google rankings.
search engine rankings are defined by two main types of factor: on-site factors (eg. title tag, body content, etc) and off-site factors (eg. number of inbound links, text contained in those inbound links, domain registration details, level of trust the search engine attributes to the linking pages, etc).
NA at na
06 December 2006 16:26pm
Hi Daniel
Many thanks - it's good to know just in case someone does it to you ;-)
Miles
Online Marketing / SEO at forum30.co.uk
07 December 2006 09:14am
A more mundane, but practical example is a search for the word 'pizza' on Google.
If I'm right, the Pizza Hut homepage that comes up top in the SERPs doesn't mention the word pizza on the page (except in the title tag). They simply have thousands of links pointing to their site with the word 'pizza' (probably Pizza Hut) in the anchor text.
An example of why links are so important if you want to rank highly for a competitive phrase.
Another example is the programming language inventor or serial killer quiz at www.malevole.com/mv/misc/killerquiz/
It's written completely in Flash, so doesn't contain 'content' for search engines. However, it has ranked in the top 10 results for a search for 'quiz' for years now. The reason being that it worked as a viral campaign, with geeks across the world interested in the subject matter, exactly the sort of people who are in a position to link to it from their sites/blogs.
Content's important, but links are king.
E-Business Consultant at Dan Barker
07 December 2006 11:36am
I think the best example along those lines are the phrases 'leave' and 'leave now'.
if you search for 'leave' in the major search engines, you'll see that google, yahoo & disney usually come up top. that's purely because there are thousands of casino/adult sites with 'are you over 18?' messages & 'leave now' links pointing to innocuous sites such as yahoo/disney/google.
(a very small ps about the serial killer quiz: the page does include content for search engines which includes the word 'quiz'. it's in the non-flash content, though i totally agree that that has very little to do with its huge ranking for 'quiz').
take-aways: