Google Patent #20050071741 Implications
Posted by Anthony on May 10th, 2006Google filed a patent which was made publicly available recently called ‘Information retrieval based on historical data’. While not a leisurely read like a novel would be, it certainly gives a great deal of insight into the future of search engine algorithm technology and is certainly worth studying for the SEO enthusiast.
Aging Delay
I mentioned in another post the issue of the Google Sandbox. This is different from the aging delay in that aging delay is a subset of the sandbox. Thus, the aging delay could be another reason why a site would end up in the sandbox.
While in the Sandbox, your site will not rank highly in Google for any meaningful keyword phrases that might bring it any decent web traffic.
Measuring Traffic Data for Search Engine Rankings
Google can use traffic data obtained from sites in establishing how it should rank. It states in part “…information relating to traffic associated with a document over time may be used to generate (or alter) a score associated with the document.” Being in the top 10 is not enough. A site must prove to be useful in order to remain in it’s position. Google wants to know what its users like and dislike and the only way it can know this for sure is to monitor it. User data is now an important factor in long-term search engine placement since clicks are measured as one of the many factors indicating “votes” for a site. Website usability and user behaviors, therefore, becomes an integral factor in effective SEO. In addition to high link popularity, the more useful and relevant the information which translates to higher clickthroughs and conversions, the higher the rankings. So, how does Google obtain information about your site’s traffic even though they don’t have access to your log files or traffic reports? Well, as part of the Terms of Service agreement you signed when you downloaded the Google Toolbar (which I’m sure you read, right?), they have access to anonymous data from user behaviors while surfing and it includes sites visited and duration of visit. If you are a privacy freak, don’t worry because this is not like the malicious spyware that sends personal data without your knowledge. They take the aggregate data received and then use it to perfect their search engine ranking algorithm. Highly traffic sites means these are popular sites, and Google wants to ensure that their searchers find these popular sites easily because they are most relevant to the search query.
Using Click-Through Rates in SERPs to Establish Search Engine Rankings
Google states, “…may monitor the number of times that a document is selected from a set of search results and/or the amount of time one or more users spend accessing the document. [Google] may then score the document based, at least in part, on this information.” Google tracks the URLs in their SERPs and use it to determine which pages are getting clicked on most for specific keyword phrases (much like Google’s Adwords program does). They also determine if the searcher was satisfied with the page they clicked on by keeping track of user beahviors after the site visit – i.e. Did the user hit the ‘Back’ button and click on another result in the SERPs?
Tracking Growth Patterns of Inbound Links to Weed Out Spam Sites
Another interesting factor which might be complex to implement is the tracking of inbound links as stated here: “A sudden growth in the number of apparently independent peers, incoming and/or outgoing, with a large number of links to individual documents may indicate a potentially synthetic web graph, which is an indicator of an attempt to spam. This indication may be strengthened if the growth corresponds to anchor text that is unusually coherent or discordant. This information can be used to demote the impact of such links, when used with a link-based scoring technique, either as a binary decision item (e.g., demote the score by a fixed amount) or a multiplicative factor.” This would mean that as webmasters and SEOs, it would be a good idea to have natural looking growth patterns over time rather than sudden spikes. You also want to be careful of unusually high number of inbound links compared to your competition’s average because this sets off more alarm bells that could flag it for appearing spammy. Natural-looking link text is a must to rank on Google. Therefore, all inbound links pointing to a site saying “mortgage” only is not a good sign and will likely get penalized. You’ll want to refer to my article on natural link building here for tips on link text variations and strategies.
All this leads back to Google’s main purpose which is to provide the *most* relevant results to searchers – something that the Google engineers have been emphasizing more of since last year. With all the spammy Adsense and affiliate sites going around these days, there has to be some way to combat them and rank the good sites. This patent may spell bad news for those well-meaning new site owners as it would take a much longer time (possibly years) to obtain decent rankings on Google especially if they are starting a site in competitive niches. Even with a well-designed and SEO’d site that is high quality and contains lots of useful information, it may not achieve any rankings. If you’re considering setting up a site, getting started now instead of later so that the site will have sufficient time to age in the search engines would be highly recommended.
Recent Comments