Google hacked?

[GroobySteven]

Go to google.com and type in the word "failure" (this may be old but I just saw it today).
See what comes up first.

Would anyone be able to tell me how that can happen (other than the obvious) is it a hack on google or on the website?
thanks
seanchai

[Ecstatic]

seanchai, did you read Google's explanation?


Googlebombing 'failure'
9/16/2005 12:54:00 PM

Posted by Marissa Mayer, Director of Consumer Web Products

If you do a Google search on the word [failure] or the phrase [miserable failure], the top result is currently the White House’s official biographical page for President Bush. We've received some complaints recently from users who assume that this reflects a political bias on our part. I'd like to explain how these results come up in order to allay these concerns.

Google's search results are generated by computer programs that rank web pages in large part by examining the number and relative popularity of the sites that link to them. By using a practice called googlebombing, however, determined pranksters can occasionally produce odd results. In this case, a number of webmasters use the phrases [failure] and [miserable failure] to describe and link to President Bush's website, thus pushing it to the top of searches for those phrases. We don't condone the practice of googlebombing, or any other action that seeks to affect the integrity of our search results, but we're also reluctant to alter our results by hand in order to prevent such items from showing up. Pranks like this may be distracting to some, but they don't affect the overall quality of our search service, whose objectivity, as always, remains the core of our mission.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/09/googlebombing-failure.html

[GroobySteven]

Thanks Ecstatic
So if enough sites had the word "shemale" on it and they linked to shemaleyum.com it would increase my ranking?
Shemaleyum is 3rd on the word "shemale"
ladyboy-ladyboy is 1st on the word "ladyboy"
franks-tgirlworld.com is 4th on the word "tgirl"

Is this solely because of links or any other bright ideas to get the sites up there?
seanchai

[fishman33]

I don't know if it still that way, but the next link in the list takes you to Michael Moore's website. I guess he really has nothing better to do than 'googlebomb', but it is actually pretty funny.

[Ecstatic]

Outstanding, seanchai. Of course, one big factor is that your sites have been out there for so long--since what, 1996 or 1997 for SMY, right? Anyway, the basic google algorithm (which as I understand it is tweaked periodically) generates page ranking based primarily on who links to your site and how relevant the keyword is to your site. They explain this:


PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important."

http://www.google.com/technology/

Since there's no doubt that SMY is shemale and ladyboy-ladyboy is ladyboy, plus your long history on the net, and the number of other sites which link to yours, the higher the results. "Googlebombing" is a bit different, in that it's increasing the occurance of the "bombed" keyword on the web altogether, so yes, the more "shemale" is used on the net--in any context--the more important the word appears to be, so the higher its value. But I doubt that affects your placement very much. Having the keyword in the domain name (you do), prominently featured IN CONTEXT on the page (not "spammed" by being repeated dozens of times--you can be penalized in results for this, especially the trick of tiny fonts in the same color as the page background), with as many links to your site as possible is what counts.

(If you ever need an assistant webmaster, seanchai, give me a yell!)

[Bigguy]

How these Google bombs work is through a lot of anchor text. If a lot of websites link to a page or website with the same anchor text or same words in the anchor text, that gives it more ranking for that word.

Anchor text is the text used in the link. Say if enough people linked to CNN with the anchor text "shemale" like this: shemale (http://www.cnn.com/), it will begin to rank better for that word even though that word isn't in the title of the page or on the page in any way. It will take many linking pages with Google pagerank for it to rank number #1 though for that word to overcome the ones that actually have to do with shemales.

Maybe I just spend to much time reading webmasterworld, lol.

[slinky]

senchai:

Do some searching on :"Search Engine Optimization"

Here are a few places:

http://seochat.com/
http://www.adultsem.com/adult-seo-blog/index.php/archives/category/adult-seo-tutorials/
http://www.cozyacademy.com/classrooms/traffic/index.asp

[Ecstatic]

That's right, bigguy, and a big reason for consistent anchor text for linksharing.

[GroobySteven]

Thanks guys - must admit some of this stuff makes my head spin!
Heard of a book called Googlehacks which one of the guys who works for me likes a lot.
seanchai

[LG]

seanchai,

That is how Google works, by looking at the number and importance of sites linking to any giving site and the keywords used. This is partly why it is so highly rated too, because by doing the above it gives the most pertinent results. The existence of key words within the code (HTML) of your page is less important.

It is also why it is harder to optimise for Google. SEO (search engine optimisation) of your HTML code can help to a point, by ensuring that you have metatags in your code (which act as indicators), links that work, relevant keywords and title related to your keywords. After that, it is a matter of going out there to get links. To see who links to you, try a link search by typing the following in Google link:www.shemaleyum.com . You may also view how many pages (not including your own) mention your site actually mention your site by trying out "www shemaleyum com" -site:www.shemaleyum.com. Just change the URL and try it out for each site.

Try Alexa as well (www.alexa.com or http://www.alexa.com/data/details/?url=www.shemaleyum.com)which tells you which other sites your visitors also look at as well as your traffic rank.

I suspect you may know much of this already, but if not, have a look. All of the aformentioned are free services, and you can get some free instructions online on how to fiddle about with your HTML and add metatags.

If you want to googlebomb, then try and put links on as many sites as possible. Many sites will allow you to do this for free. The text of the link must be the keyword you wish to rank highly with on Google. The more popular the site, the better it is.

That's just a brief intro. I know a few other things, and I intend to take an SEO course soon. PM me if you have any other questions and I will see if I can answer them. If I can get your popularity up, then how about a free subscription?

However, since your sites are all on the first page of Google, further SEO isn't so necessary. It may actually cost more than it is worth your while to hire a professionally qualified SEO expert.

[Bigguy]

Speaking of Google, anybody ever see this picture (http://web.archive.org/web/20021030152640/www-db.stanford.edu/~sergey/photos/drag96.jpg)?

[Ecstatic]

LG, I agree, seanchai has no need to worry about increasing his rank on google--other webmasters would kill for his rankings. And the simple secret there is timing: seanchai got into ts porn online before anyone else (about the same time I started working online--but I worked for software companies and was an underpaid underling whilst he became the Hugh Hefner of online ts porn).

As for metatags, don't bother. Most search engines ignore them, primarily because webmasters have constantly tried to exploit them (which in fact is what drove google to use the Page Rank algorithm instead). In theory, metatags are the way to go: If the web were run by librarians, metadata (data about data, like metatags* are data about the webpage in question) would rule because it would logically organize the web according to clearly define parameters, just like the Dewey decimal or Library of Congress systems do in libraries. But the web is run by businessmen, web geeks and the like who either a) don't know about metatags or b) exploit them, so it doesn't work in the real world. Solution: ignore metatags (unless you're working with a specialized directory such as a university cataloging system which will use them).

* (for anyone who doesn't know, metatags are placed in the head tag of a webpage and not displayed on the screen; all the onscreen/displayed content is found in the body tag)

[Bigguy]

Google does use the meta description tag but ignores the meta keywords tag.

[Ecstatic]

Yes, thanks for the clarification. I was only talking about the keyword metatag.

[Felicia Katt]

Speaking of Google, anybody ever see this picture (http://web.archive.org/web/20021030152640/www-db.stanford.edu/~sergey/photos/drag96.jpg)?


ok, I'll bite. who is that and what does he have to do with Google?

FK