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Google has recently filed a patent that details many points that Google uses to rank
web pages. The title of the patent is "Information retrieval
based on historical data" and it confirms the existence
of the Google sandbox and that it can apply to all web
pages.
In this article, we're trying to find
out what this means to your web site and what you have
to do to optimize your web pages so that you get high
rankings on Google.
Part 1: How your
web page changes influence your rankings on Google
The patent specification
revealed a lot of information about possible ways Google
might use your web page changes to determine the ranking
of your site.
In addition to web page content, the
ranking of web pages is influenced by the frequency
of page or site updates. Google measures content changes
to determine how fresh or how stale a web page is. Google
tries to distinguish between real and superfluous content
changes.
This doesn't mean that it is always
advisable to regularly change the content of your web
pages. Google says that stale results might be desirable
for information that doesn't need updating while fresh
content is good for results that require it.
For example, seasonal results might
go up and down in the result pages based on the time
of the year.
Google possibly records
the following web page changes:
- the frequency
of changes
- the amount
of 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)
Google might use the results of this
analysis to specify the ranking of a web page in addition
to its content.
Section 0128 in the patent filing reveals
that you shouldn't change the focus of too many documents
at once:
"A significant change over time
in the set of topics associated with a document may
indicate that the document has changed owners and previous
document indicators, such as score, anchor text, etc.,
are no longer reliable.
Similarly, a spike in the number
of topics could indicate spam. For example, if a particular
document is associated with a set of one or more topics
over what may be considered a 'stable' period of time
and then a (sudden) spike occurs in the number of topics
associated with the document, this may be an indication
that the document has been taken over as a 'doorway'
document.
Another indication may include the
disappearance of the original topics associated with
the document. If one or more of these situations are
detected, then [Google] may reduce the relative score
of such documents and/or the links, anchor text, or
other data associated the document."
This means that the Google sandbox phenomenon may apply to your web site if
you change your web pages.
What does this meant
to your web site?
First of all, you should make sure
that your web page content is optimized for Google. If your web page content is not
optimized, all other ranking factors won't help you
much.
Try to find out if the keywords you
target on search engines require static or fresh search
results and update your web site content accordingly.
Make sure that you don't change too much at once so
that your web site won't be put in the sandbox.
In upcoming newsletter issues, we'll
discuss other important factors that can influence your
ranking on Google and that are mentioned in the patent
specification..
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Part
2
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