Google Bowling

Google bowling is an unethical, black hat SEO technique that some companies use to sabotage (or "bowl down") a competitor's websites. If a website has been Google bowled, it will disappear on Google search engine results pages, or its ranking on Google may go from number 3 to number 12,000.

The evil idea behind Google bowling all started when Google started penalizing the practice of buying site-wide text link ads. Site-wide text link ads ads are sold expressly for the purpose of increasing a company's ranking on Google's search engine results, by pointing thousands of advertising links from a single website to a company's official website. After Google started penalizing or banning sites that buy site-wide text link ads, the sport of Google bowling began. With Google Bowling, unethical companies pose as their competitors and buy site-wide text link ads (in their competitor's name). Then Google moves in and penalizes or banes the competitor's website, effectively erasing the unethical company's online competition.

Google Bowling can drag a small company into bankruptcy, and it can significantly affect the sales of even large companies (particularly those companies that get a lot of their sales directly or indirectly through Internet).

The most effective method of combating or preventing other companies to strike out your website is hiring a good SEO company, who will monitor all Internet traffic connected with your site and detect any sabotage

Google Bowling is done off site (not on the "targeted competitor's website" or on the unethical company doing the Google bowling), so it can be hard to track if your competitors are using it on you. If your competitors are aggressive or unethical enough to use Google Bowling on you, your website can end up getting banned or penalized (which means your website won't show up when your customers are searching for you online).