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The Google Patent and SEO
By Stephan Miller (c) 2005

Google's Patent Application contains a lot to read and
reading it may take some time, but if you own any type of
website, this is all information you need to know. It also
brings some interesting points up. While I go over some of
the important points, know that no one knows which of these
factors is given more weight than the others.

Domain Name Registration - Google is now going to track when
a domain is registered among other things. An older domain
will get a higher ranking. No more throw away domain names.
No more jump to the top of Google results in thirty days.

They will also be tracking the length of renewal on the
theory that a person that renews for ten years will be more
likely to build a worthwhile site than someone who only
holds their domain for a year.

Google will also be keeping a blacklist of known spammers
and will be using this list when checking dns records of
websites. So spammers who make sure to get their new
throwaway domains with different nameservers in order to
throw Google off may have to try something new.

Google Spyware? - They are using "user behavior" to rank
sites. In my book, if spyware removers try to remove Alexa
every time I run it, then this function of the Google
toolbar can only be called spyware. Yes, you may check the
box on the terms of service for the toolbar, but it still
tracks your internet browsing.

But, I think the theory will make search engine results much
better.

Google will be tracking the number of times a document is
selected from the search engine results. This is a great
idea. It means you now have to write the titles of your
pages to grab the searcher's attention. And since the search
terms are highlighted in the results, maybe placing them at
the beginning of sentences in your page may make them stand
out due to capitalization. But I also see a way that this
can be spammed by a network of "search and click" spammers.

They will also be tracking the amount of time a person
spends on the page that they find. I don't know about you,
but I have been around long enough to notice a spam page and
I am gone in two seconds. This may help drop them out of
legitimate results.

Content Changes - I think this comes down to just updating
your information the way it should be updated. If you have a
forum that hasn't been active in a week, the one that is
very active with new posts every minute will definitely rank
higher.

But the document also mentions that some stale sites may not
be ranked lower, if not updated that much. For example, a
site on the Civil War would not be expected to change as much
as a news headlines site and an older, more stable site may
get the rank boost.

Query Analysis - A search for "American Idol Winner" will
produce different results than it did last year, even if a
page on last year's winner has more links pointing to it.

Google will be following trends by the increase or decrease
in the usage of certain search terms or phrases. I am not
sure how this will be implemented. Will there be a quicker
ranking algorithm for new trends? Or will sites that have a
tendency to break new topics get top billing for such terms?

The search engine will also be sensitive to terms that could
be used for different subjects. When you search for "Deep
Throat" are you looking for Mark Felt or a Linda Lovelace
movie? Google will track what searchers are actually looking
for and changes in searching trends.

A Google Browser? - Google also says that they will attempt
to track bookmarks and favorites files along with cache
files to help determine the ranking of sites. The only way I
see this happening is through their own browser and again,
this brings up the question of spyware.

Topics - Pages will now be tracked for the topics they
cover. Maybe this is what Site Flavored Search is all about.
Google says that changes in topic will be traced for scoring.
So a drastic change in a site may drop it down in the search
results. I think this must already be in effect, just for
some of the things I have seen with my own sites.

Anchor Text - Google says that links to pages from other
sites tend to have differing anchor text if they are
obtained naturally. Artificial linking campaigns tend to
produce anchor text that is the same.

Anchor text that changes when the page the link is on
changes will be counted as being more relevant.

Anchor text that changes with time may indicate a change in
topic on the site.

Anchor text that is no longer relevant to the site linked to
may be discounted.

Traffic - Google will track traffic to a page to determine
if the content is stale or not. This is a cue that sites
will no longer be create and forget. Google will also factor
in Advertising traffic.

Linking - Google says that legitimate sites attract links
back slowly. Whether this is true or not depends on the
definition of "slowly". I know of sites like
stumbleupon.com, where users comment and rate sites
constantly and one site sent into the mix can get hundreds
of links to it within a day just from comments posted about
it.

Google also says that exchanging links, purchasing links, or
gaining links from documents where there is no editorial
discretion are all forms of link spam. Does this mean that
if you link to someone and they link to you, that is spam?
Then a lot of bloggers out there who aren't really trying to
spam may get accused of doing so.

They will also be measuring the authority of the page that
the links are on, mentioning government documents
specifically. This smacks of information control. Who
assigns this authority and what makes one person more of an
authority than another? If a political issue is searched for,
will a Democrat's or a Republican's page come up first?

The freshness of the page that the link is on will also help
determine the freshness of the linked-to page. This is a
good argument for using a blog and pinging after your
entries.

A page that is updated while the link on that page remains
the same is a good indicator of the relevancy of that link.

Ranking History - Ranking change is another feature that
Google will use to detect spam. Not that all sites will be
flagged as spam sites if they see a huge jump in ranking.
Some of these sites could be topical. The authors of the
site may have caught onto a new trend just as it was rising.

But Google also will measure the change in a site's ranking
to determine if the content is becoming stale, i.e. a drop
in links to the site.

Now this must mean some sort of balance and I hope they have
leeway for traditional SEO. For example, If you have written
new software and have created a PAD file for it, you can
literally get hundreds of new links in a week. It only
takes a second to submit.

What about if you started your own affiliate program. You
can get a lot of links quickly that way? Will Google see
this as spam? We will have to wait and see.

Finally Hope - Competition always inspires a better product
and more options for internet users. Despite the focus on
Google in search engine forums and its name being used to
define "search for something on the internet", i.e. I
Googled him, Google's hold on the market has actually dropped.

When once you could optimize for Google and leave it that,
now the combined use of MSN and Yahoo is greater than
Google, with Yahoo nipping at Google's heels.

This leaves options for us as search engine marketers and
internet searchers. If one search engine doesn't suit us, at
least we know that it isn't the only one we have to choose.

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Stephan Miller
http://www.stephanmiller.com
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