Will Smith, you either like history or trying to 'Google Bowl' out your competition. You have taken me a couple of years back in time. Here's the story. A couple of years ago people realized that Google's search ranking algo was heavily based on back links (it still is but to a lesser degree and more difficult to game). People started link spamming i.e site wide links to game the system and artificially achieve high rankings. Search engines did not like it and cracked down. As a result many sites were penalized, removed from indexed or pushed in SERP oblivion. From this instance, some tricky/crooked/shrewd people got the idea. What if I link spam my competitors website? They get banned right. They Google bowled them to get their websites removed from SERPs. Search engines have come a long way since then and I am sure you can no longer Google bowl your competition. Ranking algos are smarter, they will see the trend and filter it out.
I wouldn't rule out Google Bowling altogether Nancy. Take a look at the following blog post made recently by Mark at Digeratimarketing: http://www.digeratimarketing.co.uk/2008/12/12/understanding-optimum-link-growth/
Just to add to this. Google bowling is still possible, but search engines are alot smarter than they previously were in reguards to this technique, and until you reach the tipping point you will only make this site stronger in terms of rankings. You could waste a whole load of cash to only have this technique fire strait back in your face if it fails. Recent experience shows this to only work on moderatly competetive terms as the tipping point is significantly less that that of competetive term.
The search engines are 'smarter' now, sure. But they cannot predict someone's motive. A search engine spider cannot tell if I submitted links for my competitors site to try getting it banned; or if he submitted them to better his site's reach. I think this is a testament to how little value Google places on backlinks now, as opposed to then. You see, if we, the user - the advertiser - the site owner - are given too much control over the SERPS, results' value would fall drastically. I mean, everyone thinks their site is best, and wants their site on top, and conversely, want their competitor on the bottom. That is what bowling allowed users and site owners to do...manipulate the results, and participate in fraudulent activity to beat their competitor, and better themselves. That's why Google's algorithm is such a mystery. If we all knew how to beat it, results would change every second of every day, and search results would falter.
Well if you are working in a semi competetive area, or you are a competent SEO analyst, time is one comodity that tbh we really lack. Which is why their are many services and people out there that offer this service.
Not going into the debate of the financial involved in 'Google bowling' the competitions. I would better spend time getting my site up. No doubt search engines are much smarter and will get the hint or you may do more good than bad to the competition while trying to Google bowl them. I really like point Tara has made here. Google is trying to cut down or attribute less importance to factors that can be manipulated to gain high ranking. Google after all thrives on the relevance of search results and that very trait bestowed it the numero uno slot, along with many others.
Many of our clients have come to us with "FFA" link problems that the "compitition" did. And of course we had the above discussions. By deleting the pages that displayed the links, the problem went away within 3 months. Now, with the Google URL removal tool, it is even faster. Anyone can sign you up in a FFA site but you must display the links to get busted. No links - no problem. It is only what is on YOUR site that counts. Everything else is ignored.
Not even a lot of time needs to be spent, I have automated tools that can build 100's of fake spammy links an hour on autopilot. By time I meant time to run the tools, actual personal time to start the tools is a few minutes. I'm not advocating spammy links btw, just so you guys know.
We've all got comment spamming tools we can use too. The problem is it takes much more than a few thousand links to "Google Bowl" a competetive website these days, it needs to be a very high increase over a sustained period of time to be successful. Just look at how long it took money savings expert to Google Bowl themselves