Google Debunks Link Sabotage Theories

The search engine thinks the apocryphal talk about webmasters being able to wreck their competitors by creating bad links to them is just a bunch of talk.

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Editor's Note: In summary, Google says it's not likely a bad link would hold as much weight as the quality of content on a site when determining search rankings. That's not a complete denial, however, that it couldn't happen in "borderline" situations. Have something to say about this? Say it in the comments section.

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One webmaster who believes he has suffered at the hands of such "Googlebowling" tactics isn't convinced that Google looks closely enough at potential abuse coming from specially crafted inbound links.

At Search Engine Roundtable, the assertion exists that a little sneakiness by a webmaster will be the only item needed to build and target a rival, and drop it from Google's rankings. A post at Google Groups detailed how the targeted webmaster would experience such a sudden loss:

Create a bunch of links pointing toward of all your enemies and competitors' websites then use some really nasty Anchor text Keywords. Don't link the adult keywords to the site's main or index page, DO link the keywords to a single specific page on the site and use that same page as the only page to link the content too. Googlebowling works better if you embed the links into a video or flash (please note the example).

A Google staffer followed up on the post, claiming the site targeted by the Googlebowling ought to be looked at more closely, and in the context of Google's quality guildelines.

"Looking at the site that you mentioned, I could imagine that studying our Google Webmaster Guidelines, in particular the quality guidelines, would be time well spent," Google's John Mueller said.

Most of these guidelines involve the content on the site itself, something which generally can't be changed through links pointing to the site."

In a mildly direct way, Mueller suggested the site's low quality, not the inbound links, needs work. As far as evil linking and site rankings go, Mueller said in a follow-up that in theory the linking cited could cause a problem in some "borderline situations," but still suggested the webmaster in question needs to study Google's quality guidelines.