Whats next with Google?

janeth · 12-01-2003, 09:51 AM

Do you think the new filters will be effecting all the search terms on Google?

What do you think might be next?

This was in Site Pro News Today

1. Google might start valuing inbound links within paragraphs much higher than links that stand on their own (for all we know, Google is already doing this). Such links are much less likely to be the product of a link exchange, and therefore more likely to be genuine "democratic" votes.

2. Google might look at the concentration of inbound links across a website. If most inbound links point to the home page, that is another possible indicator of a link exchange, or at least that the site's content is not important enough to draw inbound links (and it is content that Google wants to deliver to its searchers).

3. Google might take a sample of inbound links to a domain, and check to see how many are reciprocated back to the linking domains. If a high percentage are reciprocated, Google might reduce the site's PageRank accordingly. Or, it might set a cut-point, dropping from its index any website with too many of its inbound links reciprocated.

4. Google might start valuing outbound links more highly. Two pages with 100 inbound links are, in theory, valued equally, even if one has 20 outbound links and the other has none. But why should Google send its searchers down a dead-end street, when the information highway is paved just as smoothly on a major thoroughfare?

5. Google might weigh a website's outbound link concentration. A website with most outbound links concentrated on just a few pages is more likely to be a "link-exchanger" than a site with links spread out across its pages.

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David Leonhardt is an online and offline publicity specialist who believes in getting in front of the ball, rather than chasing it downhill

What does everyone else think about this?

PhilC · 12-01-2003, 10:07 AM

Not a lot, janeth. Many people, including many people here, can write a list of things that Google might do in the future. That's just a list of somebody's thoughts about what a search engine might do, but it has no value.

nnclyn · 12-01-2003, 10:15 AM

I think we're all just grasping..we can't possibly know anything for sure at this point. Common sense might tell us what we think they are doing....but.......

so I'm just going through all of my pages, and going back to basics. Cleaning up anything that seems like overkill, and "de-density-ing".

dpam · 12-01-2003, 01:30 PM

I give that guy credit for sitting down and writing a lot of lines every day, but the quality of his content is very questionable. About 8 out of 10 essays seem half-baked, wrong, or silly. He just wants to find some way to fill the areas between all his snake-oil adverts.

I, Brian · 12-02-2003, 01:04 AM

Google might do a lot of things - but the field of SEO rests on enough speculation and assumptions as it is. At least they can be justified to some degree.

Speculating as to how Google will behave in future is simply idle specualtion. There's absolutely no way to be in front of the ball, in this instance, because the position and direction of the ball is unknown. That's why we have to chase...

Rivux · 12-02-2003, 02:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by janeth

2. Google might look at the concentration of inbound links across a website. If most inbound links point to the home page, that is another possible indicator of a link exchange, or at least that the site's content is not important enough to draw inbound links (and it is content that Google wants to deliver to its searchers).

I would be very suprised if they are not doing this right now. It is something that is too easy, too accurate and too obvious for them to have not implemented yet.

Johan007 · 12-02-2003, 03:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rivux

Quote:

Originally Posted by janeth

2. Google might look at the concentration of inbound links across a website. If most inbound links point to the home page, that is another possible indicator of a link exchange, or at least that the site's content is not important enough to draw inbound links (and it is content that Google wants to deliver to its searchers).

I would be very suprised if they are not doing this right now. It is something that is too easy, too accurate and too obvious for them to have not implemented yet.

Why would they de-value this even more than in Google’s old rank algorithm document? Link exchanges are a way voting for a website as long as they are relevant. I don’t exchange links with poor websites even they are a high PR 7 or what ever.

I noticed that Inkomi is reading the content of pages from where the inbound link is referring from and not just the headings but any bold text too. This is where I think Google will go.

I, Brian · 12-02-2003, 05:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johan007

I noticed that Inkomi is reading the content of pages from where the inbound link is referring from and not just the headings but any bold text too. This is where I think Google will go.

For SEO purposes, I would personally presume to work with this now anyway.

Rivux · 12-02-2003, 03:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johan007

Why would they de-value this even more than in Google’s old rank algorithm document? Link exchanges are a way voting for a website as long as they are relevant. I don’t exchange links with poor websites even they are a high PR 7 or what ever.

Because the fast majority of non-requested inbound links to a site are not to the homepage. People link to articles, stories, pictures and other items that are within a site and not as often to the homepage. If you were to check your logs and count all of the incoming referrers that go to the homepage versus ones that go to a subpage (only counting links you didnt request or exchange) you will see what I am talking about.