Site Ranking Secrets Revealed in Google’s Patent Filings
Intellectual property law is really screwy sometimes. In order to legally protect your IP, you have to make it public (eventually). Google, who has guarded their ranking algorithms so closely for years, has now had to open some of it up to the public. U.S. Patent Application 20050071741, filed September 30, 2003, became public on March 31, 2005, exposing a few ranking secrets that were new even to many industry experts. Some of the surprise things that may affect rankings include:
- Length of domain registration (longer is better)
- Number, quality and anchor text of inbound links (more is better, higher quality is better, but re: anchor text, there is such a thing as both too little and too much - you need a balance)
- Age of links (older is better)
- Speed with which links are acquired (slower is better)
- Click-through rates (higher is better, but other issues, such as seasonality, could be considered)
- Frequency and amount of updates (again, neither extreme is good)
There’s a lot more here to be considered, and the jury’s still out as to how much of this is actually in use, and if so, how much weight each item carries.Read more…
Thanks to Darren Yates for the analysis and Chris Pirillo for the tip.
CORRECTION: The original version of this post stated that the patent was filed on March 31, 2005, when in fact it was filed 18 months earlier and just became public as of that date. Thanks to attorney Douglas Sorocco for the correction. Check out his intellectual property weblog, PHOSITA.
Etwas fr die Suchmaschinen-Optimierer
Naja, das sollte die SEO’s wohl interessieren, und vielleicht auch einige meiner Kunden, daher hier und auch als Notiz fr mich!
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Some Google Secrets Exposed
A few extra pagerank secrets to think about…
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Trackback by Waterfall Web — 6/23/2005 @ 5:54 am
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Pingback by Waterfall Web » Blog Archive » Some Google Secrets Exposed — 6/23/2005 @ 6:15 am
I think there’s a lot said there about what’s missing. Content matters not?
Comment by thex.com — 6/29/2005 @ 1:47 pm
Of course content matters. What this patent said absolutely nothing about is what the weighting of any of these factors is. Any given factor might be 0.1%, or might not even be in use at all.
The other thing is that, based on my experience, content is what gets you in the game. But typically, for a reasonably competitive keyword, the first 30 or more search results all have the content. It’s the rest of the stuff that makes the difference between being on page four and being near the top of page one.
For example, do you have any idea how many profiles there are out there of Harvey Mackay? Hundreds! And they all basically say the same thing. And there are hundreds of pages of books by him too. But do a Google search, and my profile of Harvey Mackay is #3 at the moment. Why? It certainly doesn’t have much to do with content, since there are hundreds of other pages around exclusively focused on Harvey Mackay and his books.
Nope, it’s because I have a high-traffic site, with lots of links from other high-traffic sites, and I structured the page correctly, even down to the title and the URL.
Content gets you in the game, just like natural physical ability does in sports. But it’s study, coaching and practice that makes you a winner. And the top players aren’t always the ones with the greatest natural ability.
Comment by Scott Allen — 6/29/2005 @ 3:18 pm
[…] Site Ranking Secrets Revealed in Googles Patent Filing […]
Pingback by Max Design - standards based web design, development and training » Blog Archive » Some links for light reading (20/6/05) — 1/1/2006 @ 4:08 pm
Relevant link exchange within content will boost your seo efforts
Comment by Jim Stone — 6/7/2006 @ 10:22 am
I find this interesting how people are trying to understand how pagerank works and share with others.
:)
Comment by Chuck — 7/5/2006 @ 10:54 pm
[…] Site Ranking Secrets Revealed in Googles Patent Filing […]
Pingback by Max Design - standards based web design, development and training » Some links for light reading (20/6/05) — 11/21/2006 @ 9:05 pm
Dear Sir/Madam
I have a website,
and i want to increase my visit & Hit
can you help me?
Comment by amin — 9/12/2007 @ 9:48 am