Engineering a SE Algorithm

[I, Brian]

Back on topic - any good relevancy algo really needs to reference on-page content to link text. I was looking at Scottish properties the other night, and using Google, kept landing on pages that ranked simply because the site had an internal link with those keywords - but no actual body copy, other than "keywords" cannot be found. Darn annoying - a lot of high ranking pages that would not actually address the topic of Scottish properties in actual regions - just empty useless pages.

Btw - Yahoo and MSN take link pop very much into account as well, just in case anybody above hadn't noticed.

[SN3]

Originally Posted by OptWizard

Then I feel if you can not right good optimized pages then you dont know how to optimize.

It can be done. Words dont need to be repeated 10 times per line.

Anyway I see what you are saying I am just trying to bring out the point that optimized pages can be done and helps with other engines.

SE friendly pages can be written

Then fine, optimize my site (in footer) for the keywords in the title. If it sounds good I'll put it up and see if it does anything for my rankings. I bet it won't affect my rankings.

[SN3]

Originally Posted by I, Brian

Back on topic - any good relevancy algo really needs to reference on-page content to link text. I was looking at Scottish properties the other night, and using Google, kept landing on pages that ranked simply because the site had an internal link with those keywords - but no actual body copy, other than "keywords" cannot be found. Darn annoying - a lot of high ranking pages that would not actually address the topic of Scottish properties in actual regions - just empty useless pages.

Btw - Yahoo and MSN take link pop very much into account as well, just in case anybody above hadn't noticed.

I hate that. Report it to google for spamming.

[I, Brian]

Nah - I'll just find a favourite meta-engine instead - that should deal with it better.

[Dominic]

Something I would consider once you have some boundaries sorted is disclosing some info about the algo to people doing seo for your search engine.

e.g.
this = spam and
this = brownie points

Of course you would have to be general, but please be more specific than google, msn and yahoo.


To answer your question: local rank.

I think the more weight google put on local rank the better.

It's a shame you cant just serve google serps - re-calculated with a stronger weight on local rank.

PS - best wishes with the project.

[ehman]

how about also taking into consideration the number of times when a plain text url is posted (not as an actual link but just as a plain text url).

Also people can often tell wether a site has what they are looking for just by taking a look at the description from the SERPs. You may want to take into account

The number of times a page appears in SERPs + The position it appears in + click thorugh percentage.
Example: If a page is ranked at #3 for a particular search term, but it has a much higher clickthourgh rate than the pages ranked at #1 and #2 for that term, then maybe the result at #3 deserves a better ranking.

[awall19]

Originally Posted by ehman

The number of times a page appears in SERPs + The position it appears in + click thorugh percentage.
Example: If a page is ranked at #3 for a particular search term, but it has a much higher clickthourgh rate than the pages ranked at #1 and #2 for that term, then maybe the result at #3 deserves a better ranking.

if that was taken as an input it would need to be rather secretive and have a minor effect. Direct Hit used click tracking in the past and they were constantly stuck rewriting the spam software to deture manipulative automated clicks