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Monday, December 11, 2006

The Anti-Google FAQ

The year 2006 is nearing its inevitable end, but a lot of unanswered questions remain – I hope to answer some of them in this little Anti-FAQ.

 

How can I get banned from Google’s web index?

There’s a variety of methods to get “googleaxed.” For fastest results, you should employ a mixture of tactics:

How can I make sure Google ignores my requests?

Your best bet is to not contact Google:

My site occupies the #1 spot for many search queries. How can I lower my ranking?

To lower your ranking in Google, you need to remember that content is king. Thus, your first goal is to not update your content (ever), and also, make sure you only have boring content to begin with. If you do not know enough boring topics, here are some suggestions:

... but be aware of the fact you might have accidentally stumbled upon a “meganiche”!

Once you have static and uninteresting content, you still need to make sure people don’t link to you, because if Google’s the devil then backlinks are the devil’s helper. Here are some strategies to get you started:

I have a hard time spending all my AdSense income... what to do?

Lowering your ad revenues can be tricky because Google’s algorithm will try everything to create higher click-thrus, and click-thrus always result in revenues. However, there are some proven guidelines for decreasing AdSense cash:

How do I piss off Google employees?

The most straightforward way to piss off Google is to report on a leak. However, finding a leak isn’t always easy to do (e.g. you have to get hold of internal company papers or scan for subdomains and stuff), so your second-best option may be to spread rumors on Google. There’s a couple of all-time-favorite urban legends in the vicinities of search which are sure to get you some diggs, and thus the attention of Google management:

I want to get a Cease & Desist from Google. How?

That’s a good question – just how do you get the lazy Google lawyers to lift their lawyer rear and get that C&D mailed? There’s no definitive answer except “be creative, infringe on their terms of service,” but some approaches are known to work better than others:

I don’t want to hear any news about the Google. Any ideas on how to achieve that?

Stay away from the usual suspects (like Search Engine Land, Google Gadgets, Searchblog, Google Operating System, Search Engine Watch, Search Engine Roundtable, Search Engine Journal, Google Sightseeing, InsideGoogle, Digg, Google News, SEO Blackhat, and so on), and whenever there’s a Google Press Day, don’t go online at all.

I have a cool web service but don’t want to become a strong competitor to Google, what do I do?

Your desired business plan depends a lot on the specifics of your web site. That being said, you can always try the following:

I hate Google, which website do I read?

Google is knowledge, knowledge is power, and power corrupts. Try Google Watch (but avoid reading Google Watch Watch, Google Watch Watch Watch, or Google Watch Watch Watch Watch).

My company is developing neat web gizmos but we’re afraid Google might offer us loads of cash to buy our team and/ or web site. How do we build a defense plan?

Resisting to be acquired by Google is no easy task once Google put the money on the table (Google is so filthy rich, they’d even buy your site if they already own something like it). Still, there are some well-working approaches you can implement early on to prevent that from happening:

My AdWords campaign is generating too many visitors... is there something I can do against this?

Unoptimizing AdWords, like unoptimizing content, is all about choosing the wrong words. In general, take a good look at your campaign, but do not put on the “customer’s” glasses (“what do people want from my site, what relevant items can I offer them, and what will be the most easily understood way to communicate this?”). Specifically:

I don’t like how the Google homepage is all clean and uncluttered. How can I lower the Google homepage’s usability?

To add more clutter to the Google homepage, try the Google personalized homepage (this also helps when Google loads too fast for you).

I want to ruin my reputation using Google. Is there a blueprint for doing so?

Crucial to ruining your reputation by the use of Google is to have a shady past with lots of naughty secrets posted to “private” places like newsgroups, web boards, dating sites, chat rooms which enable logging and so on (posting photos is optional, but does help speed up ruining your reputation) – your motto should be “computers forget.” Also, give a lot of interviews while you’re still young and experimental, and mention your favorite drugs. Then all you can do is wait a decade or two and hope you have a unique name, too, so your prospective future employer can easily google you.

I want to get some really bad translations from Google. Where do I go to?

Just visit the Google language tools page.

Is it possible for me to make Google crash my server?

This is tough, because you can’t rely on the Googlebot crawling your site for that one. However, there’s a trick to enable Google bringing your server down, and it’s dubbed the Google Holiday Logo Maneuver. Simply follow these three steps:

  1. Write down a list of upcoming celebrity birthdays
  2. For every celebrity, create a special website, which you’ll googlebomb to the top of web results by buying text links
  3. Wait for Google to create a special logo for this famous person, linking it to their search results – and voila, your server will go down.

How do I best sue Google?

The traditional way of suing Google is to be a content owner who doesn’t quite “get” fair use. Another option is to be someone who doesn’t quite “get” anything at all, really.

Google results are often not showing enough spam hits. Is there a way to get more spam into Google?

Yes, in fact, there are different ways to increase Google spam:

If you’re still not satisfied, why not create a couple of spam websites of your own? It’s not that hard.

I want to stop using Google’s tools altogether. Where do I go?

Instead of Gmail, try Yahoo Mail. Instead of Google web search, try Yahoo web search. Instead of Picasa, try Flickr. Instead of Google Video, try Yahoo video. Well, you get the idea. Just go to Yahoo.com. Or if you’re less hip, try MSN.

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