Google Bombing Isn't Dead Quite Yet

A few months back, I wrote about the supposed end of Googlebombing. Not long after, I had my run-in with the National Pork Board and ended up ranking seventh for the term. At the time, it was easy enough to point out that the filter was still working because my page included the search term and I was actively trying to rank for the phrase. Well, that's true, but that still didn't mean that Googlebombing was dead.

After all, my incident did spawn a small effort of linking to the page of the attorney who sent me the cease and desist letter using the phrase "overzealous trademark attorney" and sure enough, there's Ms. Collins in the number one spot on Google.

Just this week, Danny reports that efforts to Googlebomb Stephen Colbert's site for the term "greatest living American" have succeeded in less than a week. Sparked by a visit to a taping of Colbert's show during SES NY last week, Jonah Stein from Alchemist Media asked Colbert what he'd love to see his site rank for.

He replied "giant brass balls."

Well, "greatest living American" isn't quite the same...but it sounds a bit more professional when passing the word at business meetings.

So how is this working if Google stopped Googlebombing?

As Danny explains, we'll just have to wait for their word on this one.

Maybe Google's Matt Cutts will come along to shed some more light on the situation. I suspect the answer will be that the link bomb fix Google uses is more sophisticated than just looking to see if the words people are using in links, when a lot of links suddenly point at a page, actually appear on a page.