Wired: A Contest to Outwit Google
Winning, but ugly
An "SEO Challenge" attracted more than 1,000 would-be search optimization hopefuls to a contest to see whose site could become the top Google listing for the nonsense phrase "nigritude ultramarine." SearchGuild, a contest sponsor, said that the contest came about in an effort to help determine how Google ticks.
So far, the top players in the first round have relied most heavily on a strategy called backlinking, where they have other sites link to the target site via certain words. Brandon Suit, the manager of an online community, won first part of the competition, taking home an iPod. The second part of the competition, which will wind up on June 10, will award the "Stayer" prize (and a brand new computer monitor) to the site that stays in the number one position the longest for the three days.
The contest is sure to be instructive to Google, as it reveals rather starkly the most effective ways to game its algorithm in ways that arbitrarily reward non-relevant content.
