What is Google Bombing?
Google bombing describes the practice of causing a website to rank for an unrelated search term. It is also called Googlewashing.
Google bombing is a black hat SEO technique as it looks to manipulate search engines. However, unlike other black hat SEO techniques that are done to increase a site’s ranking, Google bombing is done to spite a rival.
For example, during the 2004 U.S. presidential election, the profile of then-president George W. Bush showed up when visitors searched for ‘miserable failure.’
Google bombing worked back when Google heavily relied on anchor texts and backlinks to understand the content in which a backlink is used.
When enough sites used ‘miserable failure’ as the anchor text in articles about George Bush, Google assumed that ‘miserable failure’ and George Bush were related terms. Google has improved its algorithm to reduce the efficiency of Google bombs.