Big Flaw in Google’s Algorithms

admin    Google     Algorithms, Flaw, Googles

Google’s ability to index new webpages in almost real-time has shown a big flaw in Google’s algorithms. Newly created webpages cannot be ranked because it has little or no backlinks available, so what Google does is to artificially inflates the rankings of the recently-created pages based on historical datas and the few backlinks that were detected.

In cases where by Google detects increasing search volumes for query that wasn’t popular, it assumes that something new is happening around and decides to show more results based on recent webpages.

The most recent example would be last morning where Google celebrates 25 years of TCP/IP and the New Year with its logo. Click on the logo and you will be sent to the search results for [January 1 TCP/IP] and in normal cases, searchers would be shown Wikipedia as the top result.

However, results shown were all brand new webpages (some were spam sites) with page that discuss Google’s logo and quote from Wikipedia. Guess who is on the top of results? It is a newly-created blog with a keyword-rich subdomain: january-1-tcp-ip.blogspot.com and a specifically-optimized title: “January 1 tcp/ip”. More than obvious, this blog tried to take advantage of Google’s logo and succeeded in his act.

As we can see [january 1 tcp/ip] was the “hottest” query for December 31 2007 in the US and continues to be very popular today.

It seems that Google is unable to provide relevant results when faced with an increasing amount of search volumes for a “unpopular query”. This strongly reflects the flaw in Google’s algorithms and proves to be a continuing problem in the future.

How Changes In Search Engine Algorithms Can Influence Your Page Rank

admin    Google     Algorithms, Changes, Engine, Influence, Page, Rank, Search

How changes in Search Engine Algorithms Can Affect Your Page Rank

For example, in November 2003, Google’s infamous “Florida Update” caused millions of web pages to be dropped from Google’s search results. Major updates have become the bane of website owners and SEO professionals alike; however it has become apparent that updates like these are necessary to improve the relevancy of search results. Like it or not, continual tweaking is required by both the search engine developers and SEO professional to continue delivering the relevant results.

Change is important. In the case of search engines, it is required. Algorithms cannot remain the same forever. For example, just because you have ranked #1 for a certain keyword for six years doesn’t mean that you “own” that ranking. New websites are being developed on a daily basis, some of which may even be better than yours. Google algorithm update gives all players a chance to compete on level ground.

How can you deal with algorithm updates when it’s affecting your Page Rank? Below are some tips you can follow:

Don’t Panic – getting apprehensive when you see your site dropping from #1 to #20 is quite normal. But panicking will do no good. A lot of web masters think that they can control any given situation. The fact is they can’t. It’s better to let the storm pass before you deal with the problem. Chances are, the sites that are really relevant will re-surface in the rankings, unless they have been penalized for using black hat SEO techniques.

Keep the Website Properly Optimized – keeping the meta tag, title, body and other content  properly optimized and having a significant external link inventory can help your website weather the storm of a major search engine algorithm update.

Refine your Keyword Selection – some web masters may be thinking, “Why fix it if it isn’t broken?” However, ranking well with a certain group of keywords today doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll rank well forever. Refine your keyword selection with related terms that searchers type in when making a query.

Patience is Key – you know that updates are always on the horizon. Prepare your site for any algorithm changes by sticking with the basics. Providing fresh content for your site, building backlinks, and establishing a loyal traffic base will ensure that you’ll have a technically-sound website even when changes occur.

Seo – The Development Of Page Ranking Algorithms

admin    Google     Algorithms, Development, Page, Ranking

Google, which is the gold standard for all page-ranking systems (including PageRank as it is called by the industry) was started by two Stanford University Students – Sergey Brin and Larry Page (no pun intended.) These two students (now billionaires) invented the Google algorithm now known as PageRank.

All PageRank is really is a formula, not unlike the FICO score that is used to calculate credit. Only in this case the formula takes in a lot of variabilities to see if a page is worthy of being included at the top of search engine rankings. This concept weighs a page’s importance based upon the incoming links. In essence PageRank is a type of prediction, but one that can make a great deal of difference to the credibility of your business. It is the estimation of the likelihood that a given page will be reached by a web user who is randomly surfing the web. This popularity is measured by how an individual might have followed links from one page to another. This of course makes some links more valuable then others and it is your goal as a web master to use SEO techniques to make your links valuable in terms of the PageRank system.

Another genius element of the PageRank algorithm is that it keeps link results relevant to what the person is searching for. The fact that PageRank keeps searches on the Internet accurate (for the most part anyway) has made it the most emulated and popular algorithm in use by search engines today.

Of course the Google PageRank system is not invulnerable to exploitation. There are many ways of fooling the algorithm, usually through the buying and trading of links which is known as white hat SEO. There is also black hat SEO that as mentioned before uses techniques frowned on by Google to boost a web page’s rankings in the search engines.