Why Google Bombing Doesn’t Work

Some folks like Tuttle (who’s spearheading this), Scoble, and The Obvious are trying to manipulate the Google search results.

Background info
A defaming website against Martin Luther King (A great man, who stood up for great things) is gaining in search results. Folks are bombing (excessive and un-natural linking) to the websites they feel are appropriate.

While I disagree with the defaming Martin Luther site, here’s why Google bombing is hurting your cause

1. Google folks don’t like unnatural linking behavior, they may counteract this by making the links you’re bombing at a lower rating
2. You’ve just raised awareness to a website that I had not known about,
1. As a natural human instinct, I went to go seek this website to learn more.
2. From a marketing standpoint, that’s a win for ‘awareness’
3. Folks are less likely to Google Bomb to support a cause, than to link to a website in natural blog conversation.

Recommendations
Why not start a campaign blog against the defaming website, calling out all the problems with it. Use similar names and link to it a whole lot. Overtime, your site will be linked, ranked, and will show up in search results around the defame site. Then, we can link to this blog that tells the truth to overcome and fight this website. Also tag the websites in Delicious, leave notes on other sites pointing to the site demonstrating it’s a fraud.
This is a typical blog business tactic, fight fire with fire, rather than trying to undermine the ’system’.

Update Jan 26th 2007: Although a few months premature, I was right.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 21st, 2006 at 9:24 am and is filed under Feedback, Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.