Google bug accidentally raises Egyptian man’s SEO above Google itself

SEO is a big business this days, so much so, that companies shell out big bucks to increase to online relevance according to Google’s search rankings. There are best practices in place for increasing one’s SEO, but to this day, none have been able to crack Google’s secret formula to commandeer the search query; that is, until now. On June 2, 2015, an Egyptian refrigerator and air conditioning repairman had outranked Google on its very own search engine.

The curious feat was uncovered by the Egyptian digital marketer Eyad Nour, who tested the results with multiple friends by having them search the keywords “Google” and “جوجل” (Google in Arabic letters). 

Nour eventually spoke with Saber himself, and determined that the HVAC technician, while enjoying what became a minor celebrity status in Egypt, did nothing to promote his web page other simply entering his Twitter handle “sssabereltony” into the website field on his Google Plus page, and for a time, he was became one of the most popular people in the world. At least, until Google resolved the issue. 

“Nobody should be able to outrank Google for their own name on their own search engine,” explains Nour. The feat is extremely curious as Google, under all circumstances, should be default rank itself higher than anything. In a blog post on Medium, Nour provides a couple of potential reasons:

Reason one: A strange string of characters appearing on Saber’s Google+ URL may have inadvertently caused a bug. The ‘ rel=”contributor-to” may be culprit.

el=”nofollow contributor-to “>google.com.eg

Reason two: Using the Google.com.eg URL

In a separate odd circumstance, some users were given a listing on Egyptian Google for a poultry and fish market when searching for the same query. Interestingly, this business uses the same “Google.com.eg” link in the website field as Saber. 

Reason 3: “An experimental algorithm that went wrong”
According to an SE Consultant for Google named Abdelrahman Khalid, Google was fiddling with an experimental algorithm that inadvertently created the bug. This is an extremely uncommon outcome.
 
Source: Medium.com