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[RageSW]

There are a lot of new techniques that Google has filed a patent for. They mainly focus on reducing and eliminating sites that look like SPAM to provide more relevant search queries.

If you have a legitimate web site that you update frequently you should not have a problem. This is exactly the kind of web sites that Google wants to show in its search results.

However, here are a few points from the patent that you should keep in mind;

1) How long your web site has been online and how long your domain name (your URL) is registered for. You should check with your web hosting provider if you do not know this information or go to www.checkdomain.com and enter your domain there. All the information for your domain name will be shown.

Google can obtain this information a number of ways. One is through the same information that the above web site will return. This information is public info that anyone can view for a domain. It tells you how long you have owned the web site address for, the last time it has been re-registered and how long you plan to own the address for.

Another way that Google might get this info is your web page file's creation dates. Keep in mind that how long your domain is up for is just one factor. Google, and other search engines, can also check the time your pages were last modified.

Another technique that Google can use is when the web site was picked up by Google and added to their database.

Also, Google will also track how long your web site is registered for. So if you are registering a domain name, it is better to register it for at-least 3 years. Most SPAM web sites only register their domain names for 1 year hoping to get a good listing.

These factors will play a role in how Google will rank your page and how credible it will consider it to be. How much credibility it assigns and how much of a benefit these techniques are cannot be said at this point. But if you are starting a web site now, remember to register your domain name for as along as possible. Go for 5 years, and if not 3 years at the minimum.

2) How often you change or update your web site will be a very important factor in your rankings. Google can track how often your page or site is updated and even the extent to how much of your page or site was actually updated.

Something very important that you have to consider is how many pages you are adding to your web site. If you add dozens, or hundreds, of pages at first and then stop, this may hurt your rankings.

The way the measurements will now work is by comparing past changes to current ones. Google will consider the average amount of changes to a page or site over time. If these are not close to consistent Google may think you just started adding a whole bunch of content and then left your page alone. Or all of a sudden, just once, you are trying to build so many new pages. Keep your updates consistent in terms of how many pages you add to your site, how much content on each page you change and how often you change or modify a page every time you plan on an update.

One more very important topic on change is the amount of incoming and outgoing links that are added at any given time. Lets say you start a site and all of a sudden have 100 incoming and outgoing links. This can be interpreted as trying to SPAM search engines by creating a link farm (a link farm is a single web site with the sole purpose of building the number of links to or from specific web sites. You can see these sites come up often on the 3rd or 4th search results page when searching for popular terms. They try and add the most relevant links and keywords from the pages that have a higher ranking).

To sum up this point, build your links gradually and make sure the sites that link to you are related to your web site. A good way to check for related sites is by typing 'related:www.yourdomain.com' without the quotes in Google. Make sure that the text that links to your page (the anchor text between the <a> and </a> tags) includes keywords relevant to your web site but without using the same keywords over and over again and without stuffing as many as you can in there. Keep this anchor text descriptive and readable to your visitors.

3) To reduce SPAM Google will be looking at how quickly a site rises in its listing. This means if a site is put up and gets within the top ten so quickly, it may be considered to be SPAMMING the search engines. As discussed above, to many links pointing to a page in a small amount of time, especially from pages that are not related to the current document, can also be seen as SPAM.

Having your registration data accurate and matching your billing information that you used when you registered your domain name is important in making sure that your site is not trying to hide who owns it and is legitimate.

Staying on topic for your site is also important. SPAM web sites may try to just put the most searched keywords on their page. Google is looking for sites that specialize on certain topics. It makes much more sense when searching for a term like "Mac Web Design Software" to return a web site dedicated to providing web authoring tools, than it is to return a web site that lists any kind of software but happens to have a few web authoring products listed. If you searched for that term but found download.com as number one, you may eventually find you what you need. However, if http://www.ragesw.com/webdesign.php was returned you could get all the information you need on a Mac web design tool.

4) How relevant actual people think your web site will also be very important. Google can determine this using a number of factors. One being how many times a user clicks your web site when it is listed on the search results page.

Improving your click through rate can very beneficial to your rankings. In order to do this the first place to look to improve is the title of your pages. Does it correctly convey what your web site offers or is it just your keywords listed over and over? An effective title can raise your click through rate significantly.

Keep in mind though, that trying to simply increase your click through by providing a misleading web site can backfire. Google's new patent mentions measuring how long a user stays on your page for. So if you are getting 70% of people who search your keywords to click your page but they are leaving immediately for various reasons including;

a) You don't provide what you say you do
B) Your web site is difficult to use
c) Your web site doesn't provide anything interesting to the user

Than this can have a negative effect on your rankings. Insuring web site usability and unique content is important in keeping people stuck on your page.

Google can also, to an extent, track how many people bookmark your web site. The Google toolbar allows them to get this kind of information as well as from other sources.

To sum up, Google is working on removing the SPAM from the search results. They want to provide the best, and most relevant results possible because the reality is that the search engine that produces the best results will get the most users using them. In order to do this they will be making it very hard for users to SPAM or try to manipulate the results.

To get to the top of search engines it will take work, as it should. Making your site the authority for a specific subject will allow you to rank higher because people will naturally want to link to your web site which in turn will be seen as a vote for your site and as a site with credibility and relevance.

For more details on the new Google Patents and what it may mean for you, see the official patent outline at
http://appft1.uspto....&RS=20050071741

This article does not claim to be completely accurate on the new patent rules and what this may mean for your web site. Please keep this in mind and additional research may be needed for more info. The info on this article is the interpretation of the writer.

© Rage Software 2005. You may not reproduce this article without prior written permission from Rage Software (http://www.ragesw.com).