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Google bomb

A Google bomb or Google wash is an attempt to influence the ranking of a given site in results returned by Google. Due to the way that Google's algorithm works, a website will be ranked higher if the sites that link to that page all use consistent text. Googlebomb is used both as a verb and a noun.

For example, if a user registers many domains and all of them link to a main site with the text "... is a living legend" then searching for "living legend" on Google will return the main site higher in the ranking, even if the phrase "living legend" doesn't appear on the main site. A common means of exploiting this is through weblogs, where although the entry may disappear from the main page quickly, the short-term effects of a link can dramatically affect the ranking of a given site. Empirical results indicate that it does not take a large number of websites to achieve a Googlebomb. The effect has been achieved with only a handful of dedicated weblogs.

The technique was first discussed on April 6, 2001 in an article by Adam Mathes. In that article, he coined the term "Google bombing" and explained how he discovered that Google used the technique to calculate page rankings. He found that a search for "internet rockstar" returned the website of Ben Brown as the first result, even though "internet rockstar" did not appear anywhere on Brown's webpage. He reasoned that Google's algorithm returned it as the first result because many fan sites that linked to Brown's website used that phrase on their own pages.

Mathes began testing his theory by setting out to make the website of his friend Andy Pressman the number one result for a query of "talentless hack". He gave instructions for creating websites and links to Pressman's website with the text of the link reading "talentless hack". Sure enough, as other webloggers joined in his Googlebombing campaign, Pressman's website became the number one result in a Google search for "talentless hack". (Amusingly by 2004 Mathes's own site was the number one Google result of this search term.)

However, the first google bomb mentioned in the popular press may have occurred accidentally in 1999, when users discovered that the query "" returned Microsoft's home page. Now, it returns links to several news articles on the discovery.

Ironically, Google bombs often end their life by being too popular or well known, thereby attaining a mention in well regarded web journals and knocking the bomb off the top spot. It is sometimes commented that Google bombing need not be countered because of this self-disassembly.

Accomplished Googlebombs

Recent (as of 2004) and popular examples are:

• - hoax, Internet Explorer Error look-alike page saying "weapons of mass destruction cannot be found".
• Similarly, , Spanish for "Weapons of mass destruction", gives a Spanish version of the page above.
• - hoax, Google look-a-like page saying "no results found for french military victories, did you mean french military defeats?"
• and - whitehouse.gov biography of George W. Bush. Due to the search query of "miserable failure," the search terms and also point to the biography of George W. Bush. Recently, they've added to point to the biography on the White House's homepage. Interestingly enough, also points to the same page, and is third in Google's Search for "unelectable." See also BambooWeb's definition of miserable failure.
• - homepage of the SCO Group, which initiated the SCO v. IBM lawsuit alleging copyright violation in the Linux kernel. also works.
• - JewWatch, an anti-Semitic group, was for a long time the number one hit when searching on Google for "Jew", perhaps because of its linking pattern. The BambooWeb entry replaced it following a Googlebombing campaign organized by Daniel Sieradski, editor of Silvio Berlusconi (Italian Prime minister) biography. "buffone" is the Italian for "clown".
• - Silvio Berlusconi image.
• - "Spreading Santorum," a campaign to ridicule Senator Santorum by naming a bodily substance after him (see Santorum controversy).
• - Used to lead to Google's own corporate information page. still works.
• - Leads to John Kerry's 2004 election site, originated .
• - Links to a flash video featuring Damon Albarn of Blur (contains abusive language)
• - Points to "Center for Science in Public Interest" (which advocates strict regulatory oversight of genetically engineered foods).
• - Returns the biography of the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Jan Peter Balkenende, who is a Harry Potter lookalike
• Similarly, searching for gives you a link to a .

Googlebombing competitions

In May 2004, Dark Blue and SearchGuild.com teamed up to create what they termed the "SEO Challenge". They offered an Apple iPod to the person whose page was the first result for the search phrase "nigritude ultramarine" one month after the competition's start, 9 a.m. on June 7. This winner was known as the "Player". A Sony flat-screen monitor was the prize for being the first result at 9 a.m. July 7. This winner was known as the "Stayer".

The Player's Prize was won by Merkey , a forum which used a combination of googlebombing and keyword spamming. The Stayer's Prize was won by anildash, , a weblog which won through blog-based googlebombing.

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 of others that Google would alter their algorithm based on the methods used by the googlebombers.

Googlebombing in general

The most aesthetically pleasing results are obtained when using the "I'm feeling lucky" button, which automatically redirects the user to the first result. Googlebombing is usually intended as a sort of humor, and, timing being important in comedy, it is better that the page immediately appear than for the Google user to have to click through multiple links.

In some cases, the phenomenon has produced competing attempts to use the same search term as a Googlebomb. As a result, the first result at any given time varies, but the targeted sites will occupy all the top slots using a normal search instead of "I'm feeling lucky". Notable instances of this include and . The primary targets have been the Bush biography above (as well as another biography of Jimmy Carter on the same site), Michael Moore's website at www.michaelmoore.com, and the Senate website of Hillary Clinton.

Google has defended its algorithms as simply a reflection of the opinion on the Web, saying that it is not damaging the overall quality of its services. Google has said it expects Googlebombing to return to obscurity and has dismissed it as "cybergraffiti" and just another internet fad.

Searching for (italian for "miserable failure") was returning , until the webmaster inserted the HTML tag that prevents the page from being indexed by Google (<meta name="googlebot" content="noindex, nofollow" />).

It is interesting to note that because of the popularity of Google, other search engines such as , , and are also affected by Google Bombs. A search of "miserable failure" on the forementioned search engines produce the biography of George W. Bush listed at the White House site as the first link on the list. Only a few search engines, such as , and , do not produce the same first links as the rest of the search engines. MetaCrawler and ProFusion are metasearch engines which use multiple search engines... this might explain why they do not produce the biography of George W. Bush listed at the White House site as the first link on the list when searching for "miserable failure."

Commercial googlebombing

Some unscrupulous website operators have adapted googlebombing techniques to spamdexing.

One such technique is the posting of links to a site in an Internet forum along with phrases the promoter hopes to associate with the site. Unlike conventional message board spam, the object is not to attract readers to the site directly, but to increase the site's ranking under those search terms. Promoters using this technique frequently target forums with low reader traffic, in hopes that it will fly under the moderators' radar. BambooWeb in particular is often the target of this kind of page rank vandalism, as all of the pages are freely editable.

Another technique is for the owner of an Internet domain name to set up the domain's DNS entry so that all subdomains are directed to the same server. The operator then sets up the server so that page requests generate a page full of desired Google search terms, each linking to a subdomain of the same site, with the same title as the subdomain in the requested URL. Frequently the subdomain matches the linked phrase, with spaces replaced by underscores or hyphens. Since Google treats subdomains as distinct sites, the effect of a large number of subdomains linking to each other is a boost to the PageRank of those subdomains and of any other site they link to.