What The Google Patent Means For SEO

Originally Published: May 17, 2005

Google might use the following to determine the ranking of your pages:

the frequency of web page changes
the amount of web page changes (substantial or shallow changes)
the change in keyword density
the number of new web pages that link to a web page
the changes in anchor texts (the text that is used to link to a web page)
the number of links to low trust web sites (for example too many affiliate links on one web page)

Your Google rankings can also be influenced by your domain name:

the length of the domain registration (one year vs. several years)
the address of the web site owner, the admin and the technical contact
the stability of data and host company
the number of pages on a web site (web sites must have more than one page)

How Google might rate the links to your web site:

the anchor text and the discovery date of links are recorded
the appearance and disappearance of a link over time might be monitored
the growth rates of links as well as the link growth of independent peer documents might be monitored
the changes in the anchor texts over a given period of time might be monitored
the rate at which new links to a web page appear and disappear might be recorded
the distribution rating for the age of all links might be recorded
links with a long life span might get a higher rating than links with a short life span
links from fresh pages might be considered more important
if a stale document continues to get incoming links, it will be considered fresh
Google doesn't expect that new web sites have a large number of links
if a new web site gets many new links, this will be tolerated if some of the links are from authorative sites
Google indicates that it is better if link growth remains constant and slow
Google indicates that anchor texts should be varied as much as possible
Google indicates that burst link growth may be a strong indicator of search engine spam

Search results and user behavior might influence your Google rankings:

the volume of searches over time is recorded and monitored for increases
the information regarding a web page's rankings are recorded and monitored for changes
the click through rates are monitored for changes in seasonality, fast increases, or other spike traffic
the click through rates are monitored for increase or decrease trends
the click through rates are monitored to find out if stale or fresh web pages are preferred for a search query
the click through rates for web pages for a search term is recorded
the traffic to a web page is recorded and monitored for changes
the user behavior on web pages is monitored and recorded for changes
(for example the use of the back button etc.)
the user behavior might also be monitored through bookmarks, cache, favorites, and temporary files
bookmarks and favorites are monitored for both additions and deletions
the overall user behavior for documents is monitored for trend changes
the time a user spends on a web page might be used to indicate the quality and freshness of a web page

Miscellaneous factors that can influence your Google rankings:

web pages with frequent ranking changes might be considered untrustworthy
keywords that have little change in the result pages are probably matched to domains with stable rankings
keywords with many changes in the results are probably matched to domains with more votality

How to optimize your web site for Google's ranking algorithm

Editor's Note: May 17, 2007 More Google Patent News: Two New Google Ranking Patents

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