The new Google Patent and the new quality guidelines

On April 26 2007 the US Patent and Trademark Office published the new Google patent application describing “document scoring based on document inception date” specified by Google director of Search Quality our buddy buddy Matt Cutts. What the new quality guidelines tell us is nothing really new. This time they simple underline some trends that me and my SEO friends were trying to convince you guys for which nobody really believed us, but this time we have it officially on paper thanks to our beloved US patent regulations. Let me explain you now with some citations from the new patent.

You can find the patent here

[0008] Both categories of search engines strive to provide high quality results for a search query. There are several factors that may affect the quality of the results generated by a search engine. For example, some web site producers use spamming techniques to artificially inflate their rank. Also, “stale” documents (i.e., those documents that have not been updated for a period of time and, thus, contain stale data) may be ranked higher than “fresher” documents (i.e., those documents that have been more recently updated and, thus, contain more recent data). In some particular contexts, the higher ranking stale documents degrade the search results

— yep I do agree with that!

The sandbox explained :

[0039] According to another implementation, the date that a domain with which a document is registered may be used as an indication of the inception date of the document. ….. the first time that a document is referenced in another document, such as a news article, newsgroup, mailing list, or a combination of one or more such documents, may be used to infer an inception date of the document. According to a further implementation, the date that a document includes at least a threshold number of pages may be used as an indication of the inception date of the document. ….
[0040] …. For example, it may be assumed that a document with a fairly recent inception date will not have a significant number of links from other documents (i.e., back links). For existing link-based scoring techniques that score based on the number of links to/from a document, this recent document may be scored lower than an older document that has a larger number of links (e.g., back links). ……

Here we must also note that NEW Domains might have certain advantages from old domains:

[0041] Consider the example of a document with an inception date of yesterday that is referenced by 10 back links. This document may be scored higher by search engine 125 than a document with an inception date of 10 years ago that is referenced by 100 back links because the rate of link growth for the former is relatively higher than the latter. While a spiky rate of growth in the number of back links may be a factor used by search engine 125 to score documents, it may also signal an attempt to spam search engine 125. Accordingly, in this situation, search engine 125 may actually lower the score of a document(s) to reduce the effect of spamming.

Also the link growth this time has quite more influence:

[0042] .. to determine a rate at which links to the document are created (e.g., as an average per unit time based on the number of links created since the inception date or some window in that period). This rate can then be used to score the document, for example, giving more weight to documents to which links are generated more often.

The discussion on content update time is heavily underlined in few paragraphs starting from:

[0046] .. a document whose content is edited often may be scored differently than a document whose content remains static over time…. factors, such as the number of “new” or unique pages associated with a document over a period of time … the ratio of the number of new or unique pages associated with a document over a period of time versus the total number of pages associated with that document. ….the amount that the document is updated over one or more periods of time … may be determined as a function of differently weighted portions of document content. For instance, content deemed to be unimportant if updated/changed, such as Javascript, comments, advertisements, navigational elements, boilerplate material, or date/time tags, may be given relatively little weight or even ignored altogether when determining UA. On the other hand, content deemed to be important if updated/changed (e.g., more often, more recently, more extensively, etc.), such as the title or anchor text associated with the forward links, could be given more weight than changes to other content when determining UA. ……the rate of change in a current time period can be compared to the rate of change in another (e.g., previous) time period to determine whether there is an acceleration or deceleration trend. Documents for which there is an increase in the rate of change might be scored higher than those documents for which there is a steady rate of change, even if that rate of change is relatively high. The amount of change may also be a factor in this scoring. For example, documents for which there is an increase in the rate of change when that amount of change is greater than some threshold might be scored higher than those documents for which there is a steady rate of change or an amount of change is less than the threshold. ….In some situations … search engine 125 may store representations of the documents and monitor these representations for changes… may store “signatures” of documents instead of the (entire) documents themselves to detect changes to document content. .. and monitor it for relatively large changes. According to another implementation, search engine 125 may store and monitor a relatively small portion (e.g., a few terms) of the documents that are determined to be important or the most frequently occurring (excluding “stop words”). ….

New thing that I’ve always advised people “to be start with” is the valuable QUERY ANALYSIS aka the number of results pages your website is ranked for:

[0056] Another query-based factor may relate to the occurrence of certain search terms appearing in queries over time. A particular set of search terms may increasingly appear in queries over a period of time. For example, terms relating to a “hot” topic that is gaining/has gained popularity or a breaking news event would conceivably appear frequently over a period of time. In this case, search engine 125 may score documents associated with these search terms (or queries) higher than documents not associated with these terms. ……

[0058] Another query-based factor may relate to queries that remain relatively constant over time but lead to results that change over time. For example, a query relating to “world series champion” leads to search results that change over time (e.g., documents relating to a particular team dominate search results in a given year or time of year). This change can be monitored and used to score documents accordingly.

[0059] Yet another query-based factor might relate to the “staleness” of documents returned as search results. The staleness of a document may be based on factors, such as document creation date, anchor growth, traffic, content change, forward/back link growth, etc. For some queries, recent documents are very important (e.g., if searching for Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) files, the most recent version would be highly desirable). Search engine 125 may learn which queries recent changes are most important for by analyzing which documents in search results are selected by users. More specifically, search engine 125 may consider how often users favor a more recent document that is ranked lower than an older document in the search results. Additionally, if over time a particular document is included in mostly topical queries (e.g., “World Series Champions”) versus more specific queries (e.g., “New York Yankees”), then this query-based factor–by itself or with others mentioned herein–may be used to lower a score for a document that appears to be stale.

About our back links we don’t have that much difference from the previous patent but I still have to outline:

[0063] … link-based factors may be used to generate (or alter) a score associated with a document. In one implementation, the link-based factors may relate to the dates that new links appear to a document and that existing links disappear. The appearance date of a link may be the first date that search engine 125 finds the link or the date of the document that contains the link (e.g., the date that the document was found with the link or the date that it was last updated). The disappearance date of a link may be the first date that the document containing the link either dropped the link or disappeared itself…. the rate at which links appear or disappear over time, how many links appear or disappear during a given time period, whether there is trend toward appearance of new links versus disappearance of existing links to the document, etc. … For example, a downward trend in the number or rate of new links (e.g., based on a comparison of the number or rate of new links in a recent time period versus an older time period) over time could signal to search engine 125 that a document is stale, in which case search engine 125 may decrease the document’s score. Conversely, an upward trend may signal a “fresh” document (e.g., a document whose content is fresh–recently created or updated) that might be considered more relevant

Also the LINK SPAM or Link Buying is underlined and is something that all should be aware of:

[0073] The dates that links appear can also be used to detect “spam,” where owners of documents or their colleagues create links to their own document for the purpose of boosting the score assigned by a search engine. A typical, “legitimate” document attracts back links slowly. A large spike in the quantity of back links may signal a topical phenomenon (e.g., the CDC web site may develop many links quickly after an outbreak, such as SARS), or signal attempts to spam a search engine (to obtain a higher ranking and, thus, better placement in search results) by exchanging links, purchasing links, or gaining links from documents without editorial discretion on making links. Examples of documents that give links without editorial discretion include guest books, referrer logs, and “free for all” pages that let anyone add a link to a document.

[0074] According to a further implementation, the analysis may depend on the date that links disappear. The disappearance of many links can mean that the document to which these links point is stale (e.g., no longer being updated or has been superseded by another document). For example, search engine 125 may monitor the date at which one or more links to a document disappear, the number of links that disappear in a given window of time, or some other time-varying decrease in the number of links (or links/updates to the documents containing such links) to a document to identify documents that may be considered stale. Once a document has been determined to be stale, the links contained in that document may be discounted or ignored by search engine 125 when determining scores for documents pointed to by the links.

The Anchor text is as always the most important factor which can sometimes damage your site very badly:

[0077]…. For example, changes over time in anchor text associated with links to a document may be used as an indication that there has been an update or even a change of focus in the document. …if the content of a document changes such that it differs significantly from the anchor text associated with its back links, then the domain associated with the document may have changed significantly (completely) from a previous incarnation. This may occur when a domain expires and a different party purchases the domain. Because anchor text is often considered to be part of the document to which its associated link points, the domain may show up in search results for queries that are no longer on topic. This is an undesirable result…..One way to address this problem is to estimate the date that a domain changed its focus. This may be done by determining a date when the text of a document changes significantly or when the text of the anchor text changes significantly. All links and/or anchor text prior to that date may then be ignored or discounted

— this means that if you suddenly change the links text all your previous links might get discounted.

This time Google looks at our traffic:

[0082] According to an implementation consistent with the principles of the invention, information relating to traffic associated with a document over time may be used to generate (or alter) a score associated with the document. For example, search engine 125 may monitor the time-varying characteristics of traffic to, or other “use” of, a document by one or more users. A large reduction in traffic may indicate that a document may be stale (e.g., no longer be updated or may be superseded by another document).

VERY IMPORTANT :: USER BEHAVIOUR:

[0086] .. user behavior relating to a document over time may be used to generate (or alter) a score associated with the document. For example, search engine 125 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. .. If a document is returned for a certain query and over time, or within a given time window, users spend either more or less time on average on the document given the same or similar query, then this may be used as an indication that the document is fresh or stale, respectively. For example, assume that the query “Riverview swimming schedule” returns a document with the title “Riverview Swimming Schedule.” Assume further that users used to spend 30 seconds accessing it, but now every user that selects the document only spends a few seconds accessing it. Search engine 125 may use this information to determine that the document is stale (i.e., contains an outdated swimming schedule) and score the document accordingly.

Domain Related Information — Google looks at your WEB HOSTING PROVIDER to see if there are SPAM/PORN/GATEWAY website on the same server and you might get unwillingly punished so please choose your web hosting provider carefully. WE STRONGLY SUGGEST TO USE MAIAHOST.COM for your web hosting needs as they have very nice policy agains bad neighbourhood websites:

[0093] Also, or alternatively, the age, or other information, regarding a name server associated with a domain may be used to predict the legitimacy of the domain. A “good” name server may have a mix of different domains from different registrars and have a history of hosting those domains, while a “bad” name server might host mainly pornography or doorway domains, domains with commercial words (a common indicator of spam), or primarily bulk domains from a single registrar, or might be brand new. The newness of a name server might not automatically be a negative factor in determining the legitimacy of the associated domain, but in combination with other factors, such as ones described herein, it could be.

note that you’re using your WEB hosting’s nameservers as you need to have your own server to have you own name servers!

And now for the grand finally – RANKING HISTORY:

[0095]… search engine 125 may monitor the time-varying ranking of a document in response to search queries provided to search engine 125. Search engine 125 may determine that a document that jumps in rankings across many queries might be a topical document or it could signal an attempt to spam .. In addition,.. may monitor the ranks of documents over time to detect sudden spikes in the ranks of the documents. A spike may indicate either a topical phenomenon (e.g., a hot topic) or an attempt to spam search engine 125 by, for example, trading or purchasing links. Search engine 125 may take measures to prevent spam attempts by, for example, employing hysteresis to allow a rank to grow at a certain rate. In another implementation, the rank for a given document may be allowed a certain maximum threshold of growth over a predefined window of time. As a further measure to differentiate a document related to a topical phenomenon from a spam document, search engine 125 may consider mentions of the document in news articles, discussion groups, etc. on the theory that spam documents will not be mentioned, for example, in the news. Any or a combination of these techniques may be used to curtail spamming attempts…. It may be possible for search engine 125 to make exceptions for documents that are determined to be authoritative in some respect, such as government documents, web directories (e.g., Yahoo), and documents that have shown a relatively steady and high rank over time. For example, if an unusual spike in the number or rate of increase of links to an authoritative document occurs, then search engine 125 may consider such a document not to be spam and, thus, allow a relatively high or even no threshold for (growth of) its rank (over time).

Bookmarking and other user maintained data from the Google Toolbar and Browser partners:

[0104] According to an implementation consistent with the principles of the invention, user maintained or generated data may be used to generate (or alter) a score associated with a document. For example, search engine 125 may monitor data maintained or generated by a user, such as “bookmarks,” “favorites,” or other types of data that may provide some indication of documents favored by, or of interest to, the user. Search engine 125 may obtain this data either directly (e.g., via a browser assistant) or indirectly (e.g., via a browser). Search engine 125 may then analyze over time a number of bookmarks/favorites to which a document is associated to determine the importance of the document.

What did we learn:
1. Do not change your Link Text drastically or you can hurt your previous linking efforts
2. If you’re buying links, make sure you update your website/landing page or at least have good amount of text changed, otherwise you can be caught for spamming.
3. Using some keyword ranking reporting software “can damage your website’s rankings” simply because its not clicking on the website and G will think your website is not “Quality resource”.
4. A new thing with this update is that Your web hosting can really hurt your rankings and that is when there are porn/spam/gateway websites on your web server. This is very harsh to shared hosting accounts as you don’t really know what is on the server besides your website and you can get punished for nothing. We suggest Maiahost.com for web hosting since we are hosting our own websites there and we make sure the neighbourhood is clean from spammers and jammers!
5. Search for you targeted keywords and CLICK on your websites .. that helps show traffic and will rank you higher

Basically that’s what G’s new patent is showing and if you follow their quality guidelines you will be ranked well.

Cheers and have fun playing with the spiders.

UPDATE: We found out that google has 3 more patent applications which cover the Document Scoring based on Traffic Associated with a document; Document scoring based on Link-Based Criteria; and Document scoring based on Query Analysis. We also found out that they do not say anything different from what we mentioned above, but we will investigate carefully and infrom you for changes (if found).