Google bombing
A Googlebomb is an attempt to influence the ranking of a given site in results returned by Google. Due to the way that Google's search algorithm works, a website will be ranked higher if the sites that link to that page all use consistent text. Googlebomb is used both as a verb and a noun.
For example, if a user registers many domains and all of them link to a main site with the text "... is a living legend" then searching for "living legend" on Google will return the main site higher in the ranking, even if the phrase "living legend" doesn't appear on the main site. A common means of exploiting this is through weblogs, where although the entry may disappear from the main page quickly, the short-term effects of a link can dramatically affect the ranking of a given site. Empirical results indicate that it does not take large number of websites to achieve a Googlebomb. The effect has been achieved with only a handful of dedicated weblogs.
The technique was first discussed on April 6, 2001 in a weblog by Adam Mathes. In a posting that day, he coined the term "Google bombing" and explained how he discovered that Google used the technique to calculate page rankings. He found that a search for "internet rockstar" returned the website of Ben Brown as the first result, even though "internet rockstar" did not appear anywhere on Brown's webpage. He reasoned that Google's algorithm returned it as the first result because many fan sites that linked to Brown's website used that phrase on their own pages.
Mathes began testing his theory by setting out to make the website of his friend Andy Pressman the number one result for a query of "talentless hack". He gave instructions for creating websites and links to Pressman's website with the text of the link reading "talentless hack". Sure enough, as other webloggers joined in his Googlebombing campaign, Pressman's website became the number one result in a Google search for "talentless hack".
Recent and popular examples are, amongst others, failure, miserable failure, great president, weapons of mass destruction, french military victories, and litigious bastards. Best results are obtained when using the "I'm feeling lucky" button, which automatically redirects the user to the first result.
Google has defended its algorithms as simply a reflection of the opinion on the Web, saying that it is not damaging the overall quality of its services. Google has said it expects Googlebombing to return to obscurity and has dismissed it as "cybergraffiti" and just another internet fad.