Ever talked to someone about SEO and they started throwing around terms that made no sense to you? I know I’m guilty of it. I’ll say something like, “That backlink will give you some really good Google Juice,” before I realize that the person I’m talking to hasn’t the slightest idea of what I mean by that.

So in today’s post, I’m going to provide brief explanations of some of these terms. If you want a meatier, more in depth explanation, you may have to go to one of those blogs that is a little deeper than mine. LOL.

Google BLOOP: Back Link Over Optimization Penalty. This happens when you build backlinks that don’t look natural. Maybe you get too many all at once or perhaps you have too many keyword specific anchor texts or simply not enough branded links. Read more about Anchor Text Optimization Strategies. The only thing I don’t like about this term is the P. Most SEOs believe that the Penalty for over optimization is really just an algorithm filter rather than a manual penalty. I’ve seen cases where this penalty resolves itself when the links in question are taken down or changed to create a more robust, natural backlink portfolio.

Google Juice: The amount of “Value” passed through a backlink. In a nutshell, every backlink provides a different amount of value to your site. When a site is said to be Juicy, that means that a link from it would provide value to your site and improve your SEO. For example, a link from your cousin’s blog about fishing lakes in the Ozarks is going to be less juicy than a link from Bass Pro Shops. If you’re site is also about fishing, links from both of these sites are a good idea, but the Juicy link from BassPro.com is going to have a much greater impact on your rankings.

Google Sandbox: Refers to the idea that a brand new site can’t rank until it proves itself – or – it’s a place where sites go when they are penalized. Based on everything I’ve read, there may or may not actually be a Google sandbox. There’s a lot of debate on the subject.  Google the term yourself and have fun, but pay attention to the dates of the articles you read on this one, okay?

Google Bowling: The strategy of using poor links to bring down the rankings of a competitor. (Hey, just because I’m explaining this doesn’t mean I condone it!) Google bowling takes place when someone buys or builds links of low quality (unrelated to subject matter, low authority, foreign language) to their competitor’s website. For example if Dave’s Plumbing is beating my site in the rankings, I could go get some links on adult, pharmacy or gambling sites and point them to Dave’s site. It would look to Google like Dave is buying a bunch of garbage to try and improve his own SEO and they would give him a Google BLOOP. (Don’t do this, people. It’s really slimy.)

Google Bomb: Using backlinks on a competitor’s site to make them rank for an unwanted keyword. This happens when a someone builds or buys backlinks using unwanted anchor text and points those links to their competitor. Example: Back in 2006 the search term “miserable failure” returned the official biography of George W. Bush as the top result.

-David McBee
Internet Marketing Education

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