Nigritude Ultramarine, Seraphim Proudleduck, and Loquine Glupe
SEO (search engine optimization) contests take nonsense phrases such as (most famously) nigritude ultramarine, seraphim proudleduck, and loquine glupe. At the time the contest begins, the nonsense phrase (which may consist of "real" words) generates no results when entered as a query into Google. Afterwords, of course, this is no longer true. For example, nigritude ultramarine currently gets about 116,000 results in Google.
The contest ends after a specified amount of time, usually six months. The Webmaster whose site is ranked first in Google's search results for the contest phrase wins. Here's the FAQ for nigritude ultramarine, probably the best known of the completed SEO contests sponsored by DarkBlue and SearchGuild.com. (Good SEO forums at this last destination.)
How does a site get to the top of the results for one of these bizarre phrases? Almost anything goes, but the key points are getting inbound links, arranging for an ODP listing (or even two) and keyword stuffing. For an example of rather hilarious keyword stuffing, check out the winner of the loquine glupe contest.
At a time when Google's market capitalization has passed Time Warner's (as of June 8, 2005), it's worth remembering that Google is built on stuff such as nigritude ultramarine, seraphim proudleduck, and loquine glupe - not to mention text ads for Mark Felt, the real deep throat.
Posted by Harold Davis at June 8, 2005 09:47 AM
