Nearly everyone in the world of search is familar with the examples of "miserable failure" and "click here" - two search terms in which the top results don't contain the search terms and rank solely on the strength of external links pointing to them with the corresponding anchor text. But after reviewing some backlinks pointing to Yahoo! today, I noticed quite a few adult-themed domains and a pattern - the anchor text was always the same... "EXIT"
The websites above are just the tip of the iceberg. It would appear that tens of thousands of links point to Yahoo.com in the same manner. I was curious to see who else might be getting link love of this sort and, lo and behold, it seems that there's an agreement in the world of adult content - Disney, Yahoo, Google & a teen sex information site called Scarleteen all appear to be the focus of "exit" clicks.
Search for:
-
Exit at Google
-
Exit at Yahoo!
-
Exit at MSN
-
Exit -intitle:exit at Google
All the engines are pointing to the same group of sites, though the order shifts around. It's interesting, too, to compare the rankings of Disney, specifically - at Google, they're #1, but in the other engines they rank at 5 or lower. My take on this is that "Google-bombing" with anchor text is still easiest to perform at Google. Yahoo! appears to be putting a little more weight into words on the page, as does MSN. Either that, or Google has simply spidered a lot more adult content than its competition.
There's a very simple reason why all these porn sites have links to google and yahoo, its becuase the people if under 18 should supposedly click onthe exit and where else can you send them but a search engine because its the most neutral place!
https://www.adultdvdstoreonline.co.uk
Funny. I always tell people when beginning with SEO: why write "Click here" - you don't actually want to rank for that, do you?
Check this out for a laugh too:
https://www.googlebombshelter.com
What are these guys thinking?
Yeah, it's sort of ancient news. I mean like back in 1998, I remember this happening. Infoseek had another odd thing happen when it started using link analysis. Searches on porn terms were bringing up Disney! It was because so many porn site were linking like you show above. The algorithm took proximity of body text near a link to determine what the link might be about. Voila, Disney does porn. Similarly, "click here" is long cited as a good example of how Adobe ranks tops.
I'd always heard the "click here" one mentioned, but didn't find any results on the "exit" google-bomb. It might not have even been called at the time.
It also works for the query click here. Adobe leads the pack with the links to their download page.
Many adult webmasters do this when building a paysite tour or a Free Site, for no apparent reason, except an exit link is often required on warning pages. Some link to adware removal sites, but many just link to google, disney, or yahoo. Many adult webmasters build these four pager sites on a daily basis, so I can see these "exit" links piling up over the years.
I've always used the word "Leave" where Disney is #1 as an example of that.
It's also an example of how people linking TO you can't hurt you. (What could be worse than thousands of pornographers linking to you?)