Google changes search algorithm

Google Bombing is when you deliberately create a slew of inbound links on one word or phrase linked to a web page in order to push that page to the top of the ranking.

The best known example of Google Bombing was the campaign to link the words "miserable failure" to George W Bush's bio on the White House site. The result was that if you searched "miserable failure" on Google, Bush's bio ranked number one.

Google's stated intention is to give searchers the best possible, most relevant search results. Google Bombing manipulates the results and they work very hard to keep their searches relevant.

Latent semantic indexing

What does this mean?

• Latent: present or potential but not evident or active
  
• Semantic: of or relating to meaning, especially meaning in language
  
• Indexing: the act of classifying and providing an index in order to make items easier to retrieve

So latent semantic indexing means that Google is looking for the meaning of words that are there, but not obvious.

It recently adapted its algorithm so it is more able to index similar words and phrases that have the same meaning.

How does this affect your search engine optimisation (SEO)? If you consistently link on one word or phrase, Google could view this as an orchestrated Google Bombing campaign. Instead you should use similar or related words and phrases.

Example: If your key phrase is dry skin, don't use that exact phrase every time you link to the website or the web page. Use other similar phrases such as skin treatment, dehydrated skin, parched skin, cracked skin, dry, itchy skin and so on.