Google Bombs Are Proof That Link Building Works

Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Tuesday, 24 of April , 2007 at 10:20 am

For example, Rand Fishkin, one of the most respected people in the industry, urged his readers a few days ago to manipulate search engine rankings for the phrase “Greatest Living American” to make Stephen Colbert the number one result. What’s worse is that he offered a shot at an $80 dollar reward (a 2-month subscription) to the participants.

It’s called a Google Bomb, and SEOmoz didn’t invent it. Last year Google changed its algorithms to kill Google Bombs - well, the negative ones any way. After thousands or millions of websites linked to the White House website with the anchor text keywords “miserable failure,” Google took decisive action and disengaged the Google Bomb, offering a statement that future Google Bombs wouldn’t be possible. In actuality, all Google did was stop negative Google Bombing. Positive Google Bombs, as evidenced by Stephen Colbert’s prank, live on.

It was, after all, a prank, started by Colbert himself, not Rand Fishkin. It happened on his late night TV show The Colbert Report. Colbert actually requested a bomb that would make him the No. 1 spot for something that I won’t repeat. His fans took it down a notch and decided upon “Greatest Living American.”

I disagree with Muhammad Saleem’s analysis here. This is not a negative reflection upon SEOs. It’s actually a positive reflection because it proves the high value of links. The fact that Google places high value on inbound links and anchor text just proves that what true SEOs have been saying all along is true. Build a website with high link value and people will assist you in achieving top rankings. But you’ve got to do it the right way.

• First, suggest a keyword phrase to use for linking back to your site
• Secondly, suggest that keyword phrase link back to a specific web page
• Put an Add This icon on your page so visitors can bookmark it
• Allow trackbacks on your blog

These are all positive ways to build high value links back to your website. You don’t have to create a Google Bomb in order to make it work. But the fact that some people do create Google Bombs is proof that link building works. As long as Google places high value on inbound links people will continue to Google Bomb with great success. I think the only sure way Google can prevent it from happening is to change its algorithms to downplay the value of inbound links altogether. That likely won’t happen for awhile.

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Category: Link Building

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