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Anti-SEO, as I mentioned in one of my posts, really does seem to exist in the form of Googlebowling, an extremely blackhat (and asshat) way to lower your competitors SERP’s. The premise is this: if bad neighborhoods (spam sites, splogs, porn, gambling, etc.) link to a certain site using the same anchor text, aforementioned site will invariably drop in rankings. For example, say a website “A” ranks #1 for term “X.” If competitor “B” ranks #2 for “X” and no matter what he does, he can’t outrank “A,” what does he do? Submit site “A” to thousands of porn directories, gambling affiliates, and scraper sites that all link to “A” with anchor text “X,” of course! Google would notice this huge increase in backlinks from crap sites and thus theoretically drop the rankings of site “A.”
WAIT, WHAT? SERIOUSLY?
Well, technically not. Google denies this can happen in its official webmaster guidelines:
“Fiction: A competitor can ruin a site’s ranking somehow or have another site removed from Google’s index.
Fact: There’s almost nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index.”
Of course, Google also penalizes for the following things:
Purchasing Site Wide Links
Many links having the same exact anchor text
Links from “Bad Neighborhoods”
“Sneaky” Redirects AKA Doorway pages
Using Cookie Cutter sites
I don’t see what prevents a competitor from linking to you with the same exact anchor text from bad neighborhoods or buying site-wide links for your site, so Googlebowling should be possible if you have enough money, resources, and are an evil genius.
Oh, and by the way, this article was written for purely educational purposes, *wink wink* *nudge nudge*
By Futon-Matt on Jun 19, 2008 | Reply
This must be the 5th story I’ve seen on this topic today. People must be slightly nervous about it or something.
By Schme Boyard on Jun 19, 2008 | Reply
No nudging, Uncle Paul
By Germz on Jun 19, 2008 | Reply
Yeah wouldn’t it be cool to buy your competitor say 100k backlinks in a day?
By Ned Carey on Jun 22, 2008 | Reply
Thanks, you just gave all my competitiors ideas!
By web hosting on Jun 23, 2008 | Reply
Well, thats good idea. But I just wonder how the result going to be. Surly going to try and wait.
Chris
By Link Building Bible on Jul 1, 2008 | Reply
Yah, it’s ad… but from what i read about it, it takes a lot lot lot lot of hard work to make a tough competitor go down.
By Golf Books on Jul 3, 2008 | Reply
Interesting premise. I wonder how often this is done? I can see the big boys actively scouting for these things. With simple seo tools you can keep an eye on your own backlinks to make sure all looks good and if not have the nasty ones removed (this may be tough on small directory sites or adult forums). This could really spiral downhill.
By Lori on Jul 4, 2008 | Reply
While I don’t doubt you could negatively affect a competitor’s site, after the amount of time/energy/money you spend it would be best to spend it working on improving YOUR rankings.
Just my two cents
By Brad Blogging.com - Personal Blog Tips And Blog Help on Jul 8, 2008 | Reply
When I saw this headline, I had to read it. What an interesting post. It’s people like you Max who corrupt the Internet. Great post though.
By Max Miroff on Jul 8, 2008 | Reply
@Brad: Hey hey, I’m just the messenger here, alright!
Or am I? Better watch your sites, buddy.
By Nir @ belt buckles on Jul 12, 2008 | Reply
Let’s say i do it to my competitor, who says he won’t do it back to me?
By Max Miroff on Jul 12, 2008 | Reply
@Nir: Nothing. Dun dun daaaaaaaaa.
By Nir @ belt buckles on Jul 12, 2008 | Reply
it’s actually Dee de dee.. LOL