Culture Jamming and SEO

Go to google enter "Failure" and hit "I'm feeling lucky". As of the time of this post you'll get George Bush's Biography. This has been the case for several months.

How does this work?

Google reads the text you use in your links. It's a big factor in search engine rankings. If you enter "Big Mac" in google you'll find Mc Donnald's home page at #1 that doesn't mention Big Macs at all. This is because google knows where to find these healthy treats by reading the text of links to this site. This is the same with "Coke" and many more popular brand names.

Now, the clever part.

Many corporations and business use proactive and positive words to describe their products and services. "Solutions" is the one that drives me nuts. Ingham once had a product called "Ingham Chicken Solutuions". I'm serious.

So competing for these positive, proactive words is quite a task when you're optimising or marketing your site on Google. Many companies invest big bucks. Optus is one example (though they haven't managed to own the word online).

This is not so for derisive terms like "loser" or negative works like "Failure". So it's relatively easy to market these ideas. All you need to do is blog the code <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/president/">Failure</a> enough and you've got yourself a clever little political message.

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