BW Online | November 25, 2003 | These Sites Are a Shopper's Dream: "In October, Yahoo launched an even bigger initiative: scanning the entire Internet for product listings, though without returning pricing data. That looks like a broadside at Google's online product search engine, Froogle. Launched last December, Froogle doesn't offer side-by-side comparisons, but it does allow shoppers to arrange product listings by price. It pulls in hundreds of thousands of unique visitors each month and is growing smartly -- and selling ads.
'We don't usually monetize beta products, but we do monetize Froogle,' says Marissa Mayer, director of consumer products at Google. While Google contends that Froogle isn't a shopping-comparison site but rather a search engine to help customers find products, analysts wonder if the search leader has bigger plans. 'If Google starts taking the online shopping-comparison part of its business more seriously, Shopping.com and the others in that group could have a big problem,' says Nielsen's Leathern.
The sector's leaders say they aren't afraid of Google. They argue that its basic search technology, called PageRank, might prove difficult to adapt to online shopping. 'With PageRank, the thesis is you can always rank the most relevant results at the top and the least relevant results at the bottom. In shopping, relevancy is a function of the user. Is it the brand first? Is it the lowest price? There's no PageRank that will solve what's in your head vs. what's in my head,' says Tolia.
Froogle's Mayer says its product does what it's intended to do very well, which is find products and not necessarily supply comparison features. And Froogle can perform the most important relevancy calculation, namely ranking product offerings by price."
Saturday, November 29, 2003
Price war predicted after Virgin deal - 28-Nov-03. - 06 Nov 2003
Price war predicted after Virgin deal - 28-Nov-03. - 06 Nov 2003: "Industry commentators are predicting a price war on routes from London to New York and Sydney after Virgin Atlantic came a step closer to launching a service between Hong Kong and Sydney. "
Thursday, November 27, 2003
Google: Current Algo Update-Dance -> High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum
One more set of "conclusions"...
Google: Current Algo Update-Dance -> High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum: "Saying this future of SEOs are still bright as Dan said if you get the clue you win if not you loose. We have to do a lot of research on the current algo and one thing that is special about this algo is if we rank we have the chance of ranking for all the keywords in our theme, Google has clearly said in their guidelines,
QUOTE
Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.
This is just a way to broad band matching instead of matching a query to a keyword phrase, I have clearly explained how to win this game in my previous posts here is a small briefing.
Sprinking the words related to your site all over your site,
breaking down anchor text to match different keywords,( examples personalized)
proper internal internal link structure to support the theme of your site link to pages in your site with appropriate keyword in it avoid phrases here too,
Linking you site to some high quality sites in your category,
getting links from authority pages, directories, relevant sites,
adding your domain name or company name to the anchor text,
giving enough food(contents- I am talking about contents around 400+ words per page) to the robots to make our site more relevant to the matching query,
avoid any type of stress on your phrases like the way we used to add it once in header, once in title, once in bold, once in italic avoid anything like this.
Just add it promptly somewhere on your page may be on your header or your body or title somewhere other than that just distribute the keywords related to your site all over your place"
Google: Current Algo Update-Dance -> High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum: "Saying this future of SEOs are still bright as Dan said if you get the clue you win if not you loose. We have to do a lot of research on the current algo and one thing that is special about this algo is if we rank we have the chance of ranking for all the keywords in our theme, Google has clearly said in their guidelines,
QUOTE
Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.
This is just a way to broad band matching instead of matching a query to a keyword phrase, I have clearly explained how to win this game in my previous posts here is a small briefing.
Sprinking the words related to your site all over your site,
breaking down anchor text to match different keywords,( examples personalized)
proper internal internal link structure to support the theme of your site link to pages in your site with appropriate keyword in it avoid phrases here too,
Linking you site to some high quality sites in your category,
getting links from authority pages, directories, relevant sites,
adding your domain name or company name to the anchor text,
giving enough food(contents- I am talking about contents around 400+ words per page) to the robots to make our site more relevant to the matching query,
avoid any type of stress on your phrases like the way we used to add it once in header, once in title, once in bold, once in italic avoid anything like this.
Just add it promptly somewhere on your page may be on your header or your body or title somewhere other than that just distribute the keywords related to your site all over your place"
One more set of conclusions....Google: Current Algo Update-Dance -> High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum
Google: Current Algo Update-Dance -> High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum: "Saying this future of SEOs are still bright as Dan said if you get the clue you win if not you loose. We have to do a lot of research on the current algo and one thing that is special about this algo is if we rank we have the chance of ranking for all the keywords in our theme, Google has clearly said in their guidelines,
QUOTE
Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.
This is just a way to broad band matching instead of matching a query to a keyword phrase, I have clearly explained how to win this game in my previous posts here is a small briefing.
Sprinking the words related to your site all over your site,
breaking down anchor text to match different keywords,( examples personalized)
proper internal internal link structure to support the theme of your site link to pages in your site with appropriate keyword in it avoid phrases here too,
Linking you site to some high quality sites in your category,
getting links from authority pages, directories, relevant sites,
adding your domain name or company name to the anchor text,
giving enough food(contents- I am talking about contents around 400+ words per page) to the robots to make our site more relevant to the matching query,
avoid any type of stress on your phrases like the way we used to add it once in header, once in title, once in bold, once in italic avoid anything like this.
Just add it promptly somewhere on your page may be on your header or your body or title somewhere other than that just distribute the keywords related to your site all over your place"
QUOTE
Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.
This is just a way to broad band matching instead of matching a query to a keyword phrase, I have clearly explained how to win this game in my previous posts here is a small briefing.
Sprinking the words related to your site all over your site,
breaking down anchor text to match different keywords,( examples personalized)
proper internal internal link structure to support the theme of your site link to pages in your site with appropriate keyword in it avoid phrases here too,
Linking you site to some high quality sites in your category,
getting links from authority pages, directories, relevant sites,
adding your domain name or company name to the anchor text,
giving enough food(contents- I am talking about contents around 400+ words per page) to the robots to make our site more relevant to the matching query,
avoid any type of stress on your phrases like the way we used to add it once in header, once in title, once in bold, once in italic avoid anything like this.
Just add it promptly somewhere on your page may be on your header or your body or title somewhere other than that just distribute the keywords related to your site all over your place"
Source Claims SCO Will Sue Google (LinuxWorld)
Source Claims SCO Will Sue Google (LinuxWorld): "It's said to have a Linux server farm of some 10,000 of servers, worth, oh, $7 million to SCO as long as SCO's current cut-rate license fees maintain. "
Google Adwords: Pricing & Billing
Work out max CPC
Google Adwords: Pricing & Billing: "The pre-filled amount highlighted in blue is our recommended maximum CPC. Matching this amount ensures maximum ad exposure and clicks for all of your keywords. Once you have decided on a maximum CPC, click Calculate Estimates"
Google Adwords: Pricing & Billing: "The pre-filled amount highlighted in blue is our recommended maximum CPC. Matching this amount ensures maximum ad exposure and clicks for all of your keywords. Once you have decided on a maximum CPC, click Calculate Estimates"
google & Wall St
The Register: "So in one way, Google is already set up for the ruthless labor policies that Wall Street likes. Its decision to pursue an aggressive patent policy is another corporate trait that should stand it in good stead with the markets. (And its notorious secrecy - well known to regular Register readers - is another characteristic that should help keep it out of trouble more often than not. That said, Google's reluctance to write anything down can cause self-inflicted wounds - the PR disaster that has arisen from the company refusing to produce a public written policy for Google News has been entirely self-inflicted.)
The Fortune article does credit Schmidt with creating the products from which Google now draws its profits: $350 million on an annualized turnover of $900 million, the magazine reckons. Before Schmidt came along the company bumbled along without a clear idea money-spinner. Schmidt transformed Google into an advertising broker...
there's no space to discuss the fate of Google's marque search engine, which since the explosion of revenue from Adwords and Adsense this year has taken a beating: Google is fighting a losing battle to preserve the integrity of its search results. (You can however, now watch baseball in London again). Whether it wins the war, or even wants to, is another question. "
The Fortune article does credit Schmidt with creating the products from which Google now draws its profits: $350 million on an annualized turnover of $900 million, the magazine reckons. Before Schmidt came along the company bumbled along without a clear idea money-spinner. Schmidt transformed Google into an advertising broker...
there's no space to discuss the fate of Google's marque search engine, which since the explosion of revenue from Adwords and Adsense this year has taken a beating: Google is fighting a losing battle to preserve the integrity of its search results. (You can however, now watch baseball in London again). Whether it wins the war, or even wants to, is another question. "
Page and Brin's Blog hehehe
Page and Brin's Blog: "May 24, 2003 PageRank Broken
Posted by: Sergey Brin
According to the forums PageRank is broken again. Never mind. Larry fixed it, he understands these things."
Posted by: Sergey Brin
According to the forums PageRank is broken again. Never mind. Larry fixed it, he understands these things."
Google Results: australia totaltravel
Google Results: australia totaltravel: "Google Results: australia totaltravel
These 0 links are missing from the top 100; the red number just counts them and the black number following it is the position it would have occupied in the top 100"
Their "previous" are not the same as positions I knew about....to watch esp in HighRankings forum.
These 0 links are missing from the top 100; the red number just counts them and the black number following it is the position it would have occupied in the top 100"
Their "previous" are not the same as positions I knew about....to watch esp in HighRankings forum.
Customers rage at Google tweak | CNET News.com
Customers rage at Google tweak | CNET News.com: "The search engine giant tweaked its AdWords service in late October, saying it was making the move to better identify successful ads--those that get clicks--and to increase their visibility. It also took steps to reduce the number of unsuccessful ads that show up on its search results pages...
the new system pits smaller companies against bigger ones, ultimately favoring deep-pocketed advertisers that can afford to outbid rivals for coveted keywords...
Google is seeking to address shortcomings in its service without building up a large, well-trained staff of human editors to review ads--the course taken by its main rival, Overture Services.
"Google is trying to accomplish through technology what Overture essentially does through an editorial staff--they have a much more intense review process of what ads can appear against what words, whereas Google relies a lot more on technology," Lamberti said. "The financials are going to play into Google's favor, because they relying on the efficiency of the technology. It's yet to be seen whether it will work."
a recent study from the IAB and Comscore, the average click-through rates for travel- and finance-related sponsored ads were 18.3 percent for April and May of 2003. That compares to click-through rates of 4.3 percent for ordinary search results for related terms...
Under the old system, a hotel-chain advertiser could bid for a term such as "hotel." If the price was right and its Web page was a popular destination for Web surfers, its ads would surface to the top of Google results pages for the term. The buyer's ads would also show up in searches on phrases that included the word, such as "hotel with swimming pool," in a system called broad match.
Opening up broad match
Broad match terms evolve over time, based on the click-through rates of an ad in different contexts. For example, a keyword advertiser for the term "accommodations," might see ads appear for related keywords such as "hotels," "inns," and "hostels." But if the system learns that searchers aren't clicking on the ad in relation to the term "hostels," it will eventually remove that term from the mix.
Google expanded broad match so that it now automatically matches keywords to a wider set of terms, including synonyms and misspellings. Advertisers might now see their ads appear in results for search queries that don't use their keyword at all. For example, an ad tied to the keyword "hotel" might show up in searches on related terms, such as "vacations" or "car rentals."
Google changed a key measure it uses to determine an ad's placement, known as the "minimum click-through threshold." Google now disables any ad that has a click-through rate lower than 0.5 percent. In addition, ads must now show a higher click-through rate than they did previously in order to appear within a certain broad match phrase...
One owner of a travel Web site said that AdSense has displayed ads for hotels in Madrid on pages about Amsterdam, for example. That publisher said that for the last two weeks of October, click-through rates were down 10 percent and earnings were down 14 percent on the AdSense program, compared with the last two weeks of September.
"The relevancy of the ads has deteriorated significantly in the past month," said the publisher, who asked to remain nameless because of Google's terms of service forbid publishers from discussing the program. "When an ad appears on the page that has nothing to do with the topic of the page, click-through and revenues go down significantly."
"
the new system pits smaller companies against bigger ones, ultimately favoring deep-pocketed advertisers that can afford to outbid rivals for coveted keywords...
Google is seeking to address shortcomings in its service without building up a large, well-trained staff of human editors to review ads--the course taken by its main rival, Overture Services.
"Google is trying to accomplish through technology what Overture essentially does through an editorial staff--they have a much more intense review process of what ads can appear against what words, whereas Google relies a lot more on technology," Lamberti said. "The financials are going to play into Google's favor, because they relying on the efficiency of the technology. It's yet to be seen whether it will work."
a recent study from the IAB and Comscore, the average click-through rates for travel- and finance-related sponsored ads were 18.3 percent for April and May of 2003. That compares to click-through rates of 4.3 percent for ordinary search results for related terms...
Under the old system, a hotel-chain advertiser could bid for a term such as "hotel." If the price was right and its Web page was a popular destination for Web surfers, its ads would surface to the top of Google results pages for the term. The buyer's ads would also show up in searches on phrases that included the word, such as "hotel with swimming pool," in a system called broad match.
Opening up broad match
Broad match terms evolve over time, based on the click-through rates of an ad in different contexts. For example, a keyword advertiser for the term "accommodations," might see ads appear for related keywords such as "hotels," "inns," and "hostels." But if the system learns that searchers aren't clicking on the ad in relation to the term "hostels," it will eventually remove that term from the mix.
Google expanded broad match so that it now automatically matches keywords to a wider set of terms, including synonyms and misspellings. Advertisers might now see their ads appear in results for search queries that don't use their keyword at all. For example, an ad tied to the keyword "hotel" might show up in searches on related terms, such as "vacations" or "car rentals."
Google changed a key measure it uses to determine an ad's placement, known as the "minimum click-through threshold." Google now disables any ad that has a click-through rate lower than 0.5 percent. In addition, ads must now show a higher click-through rate than they did previously in order to appear within a certain broad match phrase...
One owner of a travel Web site said that AdSense has displayed ads for hotels in Madrid on pages about Amsterdam, for example. That publisher said that for the last two weeks of October, click-through rates were down 10 percent and earnings were down 14 percent on the AdSense program, compared with the last two weeks of September.
"The relevancy of the ads has deteriorated significantly in the past month," said the publisher, who asked to remain nameless because of Google's terms of service forbid publishers from discussing the program. "When an ad appears on the page that has nothing to do with the topic of the page, click-through and revenues go down significantly."
"
Wednesday, November 26, 2003
Google Spam Filtering Gone Bad
Google Spam Filtering Gone Bad: "Abstract: This report describes a possible explanation for recent changes in Google search results, where long-time high-ranking sites have disappeared. It is hypothesized that the changes are a result of the implementation of a 'Bayesian spam filtering' algorithm, which is producing unintended consequences."
Hilltop: A Search Engine based on Expert Documents
Hilltop: A Search Engine based on Expert Documents: "Hilltop: A Search Engine based on Expert Documents"
"propose a novel ranking scheme for broad queries that places the most authoritative pages on the query topic at the top of the ranking. Our algorithm operates on a special index of "expert documents." These are a subset of the pages on the WWW identified as directories of links to non-affiliated sources on specific topics. Results are ranked based on the match between the query and relevant descriptive text for hyperlinks on expert pages pointing to a given result page.
Three approaches to improve the authoritativeness of ranked results have been taken in the past:
1) Ranking Based on Human Classification: Human editors have been used by companies such as Yahoo! and Mining Company to manually associate a set of categories and keywords with a subset of documents on the web. These are then matched against the user's query to return valid matches. The trouble with this approach is that: (a) it is slow and can only be applied to a small number of pages, and (b) often the keywords and classifications assigned by the human judges are inadequate or incomplete. Given the rate at which the WWW is growing and the wide variation in queries this is not a comprehensive solution.
2) Ranking Based on Usage Information: Some services such as DirectHit collect information on: (a) the queries individual users submit to search services and (b) the pages they look at subsequently and the time spent on each page. This information is used to return pages that most users visit after deploying the given query. For this technique to succeed a large amount of data needs to be collected for each query. Thus, the potential set of queries on which this technique applies is small. Also, this technique is open to spamming.
3) Ranking Based on Connectivity: This approach involves analyzing the hyperlinks between pages on the web on the assumption that: (a) pages on the topic link to each other, and (b) authoritative pages tend to point to other authoritative pages.
PageRank relies on (b)
Our approach is based on the same assumptions as the other connectivity algorithms, namely that the number and quality of the sources referring to a page are a good measure of the page's quality. The key difference consists in the fact that we are only considering "expert" sources - pages that have been created with the specific purpose of directing people towards resources. In response to a query, we first compute a list of the most relevant experts on the query topic. Then, we identify relevant links within the selected set of experts, and follow them to identify target web pages. The targets are then ranked according to the number and relevance of non-affiliated experts that point to them. Thus, the score of a target page reflects the collective opinion of the best independent experts on the query topic. When such a pool of experts is not available, Hilltop provides no results. Thus, Hilltop is tuned for result accuracy and not query coverage.
Our algorithm consists of two broad phases:
(i) Expert Lookup
We define an expert page as a page that is about a certain topic and has links to many non-affiliated pages on that topic. Two pages are non-affiliated conceptually if they are authored by authors from non-affiliated organizations.
(ii) Target Ranking
We believe a page is an authority on the query topic if and only if some of the best experts on the query topic point to it.
The problem is, how can we distinguish an expert from other types of pages? In other words what makes a page an expert? We felt than an expert page needs to be objective and diverse: that is, its recommendations should be unbiased and point to numerous non-affiliated pages on the subject. Therefore, in order to find the experts, we needed to detect when two sites belong to the same or related organizations.
2.1 Detecting Host Affiliation
We define two hosts as affiliated if one or both of the following is true:
They share the same first 3 octets of the IP address.
The rightmost non-generic token in the hostname is the same.
Keywords - Indexing the experts
document text. URLs located within the scope of a phrase are said to be "qualified" by it. For example, the title, headings (e.g., text within a pair of
For a target to be considered it must be pointed to by at least 2 experts on hosts that are mutually non-affiliated and are not affiliated to the target. For all targets that qualify we compute a target score reflecting both the number and relevance of the experts pointing to it and the relevance of the phrases qualifying the links.
Conclusions
We described a new ranking algorithm for broad queries called Hilltop and the implementation of a search engine based on it. Given a broad query Hilltop generates a list of target pages which are likely to be very authoritative pages on the topic of the query. This is by virtue of the fact that they are highly valued by pages on the WWW which address the topic of the query. In computing the usefulness of a target page from the hyperlinks pointing to it, we only consider links originating from pages that seem to be experts. Experts in our definition are directories of links pointing to many non-affiliated sites. This is an indication that these pages were created for the purpose of directing users to resources, and hence we regard their opinion as valuable. Additionally, in computing the level of relevance, we require a match between the query and the text on the expert page which qualifies the hyperlink being considered. This ensures that hyperlinks being considered are on the query topic. For further accuracy, we require that at least 2 non-affiliated experts point to the returned page with relevant qualifying text describing their linkage. The result of the steps described above is to generate a listing of pages that are highly relevant to the user's query and of high quality.
"propose a novel ranking scheme for broad queries that places the most authoritative pages on the query topic at the top of the ranking. Our algorithm operates on a special index of "expert documents." These are a subset of the pages on the WWW identified as directories of links to non-affiliated sources on specific topics. Results are ranked based on the match between the query and relevant descriptive text for hyperlinks on expert pages pointing to a given result page.
Three approaches to improve the authoritativeness of ranked results have been taken in the past:
1) Ranking Based on Human Classification: Human editors have been used by companies such as Yahoo! and Mining Company to manually associate a set of categories and keywords with a subset of documents on the web. These are then matched against the user's query to return valid matches. The trouble with this approach is that: (a) it is slow and can only be applied to a small number of pages, and (b) often the keywords and classifications assigned by the human judges are inadequate or incomplete. Given the rate at which the WWW is growing and the wide variation in queries this is not a comprehensive solution.
2) Ranking Based on Usage Information: Some services such as DirectHit collect information on: (a) the queries individual users submit to search services and (b) the pages they look at subsequently and the time spent on each page. This information is used to return pages that most users visit after deploying the given query. For this technique to succeed a large amount of data needs to be collected for each query. Thus, the potential set of queries on which this technique applies is small. Also, this technique is open to spamming.
3) Ranking Based on Connectivity: This approach involves analyzing the hyperlinks between pages on the web on the assumption that: (a) pages on the topic link to each other, and (b) authoritative pages tend to point to other authoritative pages.
PageRank relies on (b)
Our approach is based on the same assumptions as the other connectivity algorithms, namely that the number and quality of the sources referring to a page are a good measure of the page's quality. The key difference consists in the fact that we are only considering "expert" sources - pages that have been created with the specific purpose of directing people towards resources. In response to a query, we first compute a list of the most relevant experts on the query topic. Then, we identify relevant links within the selected set of experts, and follow them to identify target web pages. The targets are then ranked according to the number and relevance of non-affiliated experts that point to them. Thus, the score of a target page reflects the collective opinion of the best independent experts on the query topic. When such a pool of experts is not available, Hilltop provides no results. Thus, Hilltop is tuned for result accuracy and not query coverage.
Our algorithm consists of two broad phases:
(i) Expert Lookup
We define an expert page as a page that is about a certain topic and has links to many non-affiliated pages on that topic. Two pages are non-affiliated conceptually if they are authored by authors from non-affiliated organizations.
(ii) Target Ranking
We believe a page is an authority on the query topic if and only if some of the best experts on the query topic point to it.
The problem is, how can we distinguish an expert from other types of pages? In other words what makes a page an expert? We felt than an expert page needs to be objective and diverse: that is, its recommendations should be unbiased and point to numerous non-affiliated pages on the subject. Therefore, in order to find the experts, we needed to detect when two sites belong to the same or related organizations.
2.1 Detecting Host Affiliation
We define two hosts as affiliated if one or both of the following is true:
They share the same first 3 octets of the IP address.
The rightmost non-generic token in the hostname is the same.
Keywords - Indexing the experts
document text. URLs located within the scope of a phrase are said to be "qualified" by it. For example, the title, headings (e.g., text within a pair of
tags) and anchor text within the expert page are considered key phrases. The title has a scope that qualifies all URLs in the document. A heading's scope qualifies all URLs until the next heading of the same or greater importance...
For a target to be considered it must be pointed to by at least 2 experts on hosts that are mutually non-affiliated and are not affiliated to the target. For all targets that qualify we compute a target score reflecting both the number and relevance of the experts pointing to it and the relevance of the phrases qualifying the links.
Conclusions
We described a new ranking algorithm for broad queries called Hilltop and the implementation of a search engine based on it. Given a broad query Hilltop generates a list of target pages which are likely to be very authoritative pages on the topic of the query. This is by virtue of the fact that they are highly valued by pages on the WWW which address the topic of the query. In computing the usefulness of a target page from the hyperlinks pointing to it, we only consider links originating from pages that seem to be experts. Experts in our definition are directories of links pointing to many non-affiliated sites. This is an indication that these pages were created for the purpose of directing users to resources, and hence we regard their opinion as valuable. Additionally, in computing the level of relevance, we require a match between the query and the text on the expert page which qualifies the hyperlink being considered. This ensures that hyperlinks being considered are on the query topic. For further accuracy, we require that at least 2 non-affiliated experts point to the returned page with relevant qualifying text describing their linkage. The result of the steps described above is to generate a listing of pages that are highly relevant to the user's query and of high quality.
Been Gazumped by Google? Trying to make Sense of the "Florida" Update!
Been Gazumped by Google? Trying to make Sense of the "Florida" Update!: "The following is an attempt to put down rationally (I hope) most of the information that is known and the (unproven) theories behind the update algo.
Starting on the 16th of November, a major shift in results was seen on Google...
In many areas all the top 20 ranking sites disappeared, including industry leaders, to be replaced by educational sites, news review sites, government sites, major shopping portals or directories. Something major had happened - but what?
After tests on over 500 phrases we have concluded that certain phrases kick in the new algo, and certain don't. The ones that do are always highly commercial and the ones that are not, are often also commercial.
Be aware these are theories, some are bizarre, some may be close to the truth - but only Google knows what they are doing.
Main theory; Google manages to identify sought-after search terms. It then, when the search term is looked for, applies an optimisation filter to redress the influence SEOd sites may have and reveals the adjusted, "authoritative" results. This is why you tend to see governmental, educational, shopping portal, business directory and news sites on many searches. However, some commercial sites will still be considered the authority on that subject and remain - many, though, will drop out. This is the theory we subscribe to. We believe this was, and is, the intention of Google in this update.
Google is trying to separate their results into non-commercial and commercial. Commercial results will be AdWords and non-commercial the natural listing, primarily used for research purposes. My conclusion - well, it was probably me who started this, with a rather cynical tongue-in-cheek remark on the High Rankings Forum. Well, in reality, this is pretty much impossible and would defeat Google's idea of returning the most suitable sites for all searches. But some searches do make it look that way. However, in my opinion, this is not true.
Google has changed their algo to suit their biggest advertisers. My conclusion - highly unlikely and I do not believe that Google has any wish to be seen as an unethical company, regardless of their growing unpopularity with "jilted" webmasters.
There is no separate algo for "commercial" phrases and this is a new over-all update. My conclusion - all evidence points to this not being the case. I'm waiting to be convinced I am wrong, though.
This is a result of a virus or blog results upsetting the standard results which can only be seen if you type in -mt-tb.cgi as revealed in The Register. My conclusion - this is confusing the results returned unfiltered as shown with our -waffle (or any other garbage word) with a method of getting rid of extraneous listings from Blogs in the search results by excluding from the search the signature of the most used blogger trackback script.
Conclusion:
Despite the furore, there is no great conspiracy theory. Google are trying to redress the balance by trying to eradicate obvious search engine manipulation from their most competitive results. Remember, it is what Google considers their most competitive results probably gauged by both value and number of searches. As such, certain types of site don't fall into this category. SEO sites, for example, may be competitive but are not searched for with huge frequency.
The results of the filter have probably surprised Google, but, for the moment, few surfers will notice anything - unlike webmasters. The quality of the results has changed, with searches for home alarm, web design Calgary, and medela breast pumps showing, variously, sites with nothing to do with home alarms, a hockey team being top for web design and a listing of pretty much nothing but shopping portals. (My thanks to some of the many people who have posted some of the searches they have seen and I have used - you know who you are!) Many feel this has been a severe downgrading in relevancy, others believe that this is an improvement in the surfer experience. It is your judgement!
It is certain that Google will be watching the result of their change and will adjust the algo if they think it will reward sites of merit and increase relevancy. Whatever happens, though, the days of easy rankings through simple SEO are over"
Starting on the 16th of November, a major shift in results was seen on Google...
In many areas all the top 20 ranking sites disappeared, including industry leaders, to be replaced by educational sites, news review sites, government sites, major shopping portals or directories. Something major had happened - but what?
After tests on over 500 phrases we have concluded that certain phrases kick in the new algo, and certain don't. The ones that do are always highly commercial and the ones that are not, are often also commercial.
Be aware these are theories, some are bizarre, some may be close to the truth - but only Google knows what they are doing.
Main theory; Google manages to identify sought-after search terms. It then, when the search term is looked for, applies an optimisation filter to redress the influence SEOd sites may have and reveals the adjusted, "authoritative" results. This is why you tend to see governmental, educational, shopping portal, business directory and news sites on many searches. However, some commercial sites will still be considered the authority on that subject and remain - many, though, will drop out. This is the theory we subscribe to. We believe this was, and is, the intention of Google in this update.
Google is trying to separate their results into non-commercial and commercial. Commercial results will be AdWords and non-commercial the natural listing, primarily used for research purposes. My conclusion - well, it was probably me who started this, with a rather cynical tongue-in-cheek remark on the High Rankings Forum. Well, in reality, this is pretty much impossible and would defeat Google's idea of returning the most suitable sites for all searches. But some searches do make it look that way. However, in my opinion, this is not true.
Google has changed their algo to suit their biggest advertisers. My conclusion - highly unlikely and I do not believe that Google has any wish to be seen as an unethical company, regardless of their growing unpopularity with "jilted" webmasters.
There is no separate algo for "commercial" phrases and this is a new over-all update. My conclusion - all evidence points to this not being the case. I'm waiting to be convinced I am wrong, though.
This is a result of a virus or blog results upsetting the standard results which can only be seen if you type in -mt-tb.cgi as revealed in The Register. My conclusion - this is confusing the results returned unfiltered as shown with our -waffle (or any other garbage word) with a method of getting rid of extraneous listings from Blogs in the search results by excluding from the search the signature of the most used blogger trackback script.
Conclusion:
Despite the furore, there is no great conspiracy theory. Google are trying to redress the balance by trying to eradicate obvious search engine manipulation from their most competitive results. Remember, it is what Google considers their most competitive results probably gauged by both value and number of searches. As such, certain types of site don't fall into this category. SEO sites, for example, may be competitive but are not searched for with huge frequency.
The results of the filter have probably surprised Google, but, for the moment, few surfers will notice anything - unlike webmasters. The quality of the results has changed, with searches for home alarm, web design Calgary, and medela breast pumps showing, variously, sites with nothing to do with home alarms, a hockey team being top for web design and a listing of pretty much nothing but shopping portals. (My thanks to some of the many people who have posted some of the searches they have seen and I have used - you know who you are!) Many feel this has been a severe downgrading in relevancy, others believe that this is an improvement in the surfer experience. It is your judgement!
It is certain that Google will be watching the result of their change and will adjust the algo if they think it will reward sites of merit and increase relevancy. Whatever happens, though, the days of easy rankings through simple SEO are over"
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
Google 'supplemental results'
Google 'supplemental results': "Hey, the supplemental results are a new experimental feature to augment the results for obscure queries. This is a new technology that can return more results for queries that for example have a small number of results. So it might not affect the results for a popular search, but for a researcher doing a more specific query, it can improve the recall of the results. The supplemental collection of pages has been collected from the web just like the 3.3 billion pages in Google's main index. "
Boston.com / Business / Technology / As Google grows, critics emerge
Boston.com / Business / Technology / As Google grows, critics emerge: "'Every few years there's another big fish,' he said. 'Nothing lasts forever on the Web.'
True enough. You remember AltaVista -- barely. It was the Google of the late 1990s, acclaimed as the world's best search service. But the tech-heads dropped AltaVista for Google and brought the rest of the world along with them. If Google makes them mad enough, it could happen again"
True enough. You remember AltaVista -- barely. It was the Google of the late 1990s, acclaimed as the world's best search service. But the tech-heads dropped AltaVista for Google and brought the rest of the world along with them. If Google makes them mad enough, it could happen again"
Fortune.com - Technology - Can Google Grow Up?
No apologies for quoting at length.... Fortune.com - Technology - Can Google Grow Up?: "We'll sing more of Google's praises later, but first the worrisome news: Google has grown arrogant, making some of its executives as frustrating to deal with in negotiations as AOL's cowboy salesmen during the bubble. It has grown so fast that employees and business partners are often confused about who does what. A rise of stock- and option-stoked greed is creating rifts within the company. Employees carp that Google is morphing in strange and nerve-racking ways. And talk swirls over the question of who's really in charge: CEO Schmidt or co-founders Brin and Page?"...
All are aiming for what they see as Google's weak spot: lack of customer lock-in. ...Google's foes have a much firmer hold on customers, argues Seth Godin, a well-known Internet consultant and editor of last summer's widely distributed online book What Should Google Do?... consider the way My Yahoo brings you information on everything from your portfolio to fixing your house. They will probably use that same information to tailor search results. Google, meanwhile, knows little more about you than what you are currently searching for.
...
versus...
In a short time Google has become one of the world's best-loved brands. Movie stars like Gwyneth Paltrow and ex-Presidents like Jimmy Carter drop by for visits. A thousand people apply for jobs at Google every day."...
Though web-search startups were a dime a dozen, investors couldn't hand money over to Google fast enough. When the founders showed Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim a demo in the summer of 1998, he wrote a $100,000 check on the spot. Brin and Page had to wait a month until Google actually existed to cash it. In 1999 top venture capitalists Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital invested $25 million. "It was very unfashionable to invest in a company like Google back then," said Michael Moritz, the Sequoia partner in charge of the deal, in an interview with FORTUNE last year. "But we thought Larry and Sergey were taking a fresh look." Soon after, Yahoo anted up $10 million...
Larry and Sergey spent more time talking about how they weren't going to make money—no user registration, no blast e-mails, no banner advertising—than how they were," says a participant in Google's early discussions. On Google's website, under the heading "Ten things Google has found to be true," No. 6 still reads, "You can make money without doing evil." Not doing evil is a common concern around Google and loosely translates into avoiding anything that mars Google's user experience...
Adsense, which puts ads on nonsearch sites. Read about the New York marathon on newyorktimes.com, for instance, and Adsense serves up ads for sports drinks, running shoes, or whoever else pays...
Those close to Google say that the company has begun to more closely resemble a madhouse than any kind of serene dot-com dream. It's a tough place to work, and a tough place to do business with.
Beyond the bean-bagged lobby, 12-hour days are considered standard, and an unspoken caste system has emerged. At the top are the engineers, people in the mold of Brin and Page. At the bottom are the contractors, the 30% of Google workers who labor alongside full-timers—yet without benefits, stock options, or access to the company intranet, not to mention to meetings or social events. That's fostered anger in Google's overeducated ranks....
The most immediate threat is Yahoo. It's expanding into new areas like product search (helping people to find goods, read reviews, compare prices, and buy) and local search (enabling users to find a plumber or landscaper in their neighborhood). Google has prototype sites that provide those services (froogle.google.com and labs.google.com/location), but they're not nearly as good. With about a 5% stake in Google, Yahoo goes quiet when talking about the company. Yet it's likely Yahoo will dump the stock after the IPO. Even sooner it will stop using Google's search on its site, relying instead on its newly acquired units. Says Jeff Weiner, senior vice president in charge of search: "We have every intention of deploying Inktomi and Overture throughout all our search..."
Then there's Microsoft. The company has an army of brainiacs working on incorporating web search into MSN and its new operating system, code-named Longhorn, due out in 2006. It plans to be able to index every user's hard drive and use the information to provide better searches. "All I'll say is that search is vitally important to us," says Chris Payne, Microsoft's executive in charge of search
All are aiming for what they see as Google's weak spot: lack of customer lock-in. ...Google's foes have a much firmer hold on customers, argues Seth Godin, a well-known Internet consultant and editor of last summer's widely distributed online book What Should Google Do?... consider the way My Yahoo brings you information on everything from your portfolio to fixing your house. They will probably use that same information to tailor search results. Google, meanwhile, knows little more about you than what you are currently searching for.
...
versus...
In a short time Google has become one of the world's best-loved brands. Movie stars like Gwyneth Paltrow and ex-Presidents like Jimmy Carter drop by for visits. A thousand people apply for jobs at Google every day."...
Though web-search startups were a dime a dozen, investors couldn't hand money over to Google fast enough. When the founders showed Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim a demo in the summer of 1998, he wrote a $100,000 check on the spot. Brin and Page had to wait a month until Google actually existed to cash it. In 1999 top venture capitalists Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital invested $25 million. "It was very unfashionable to invest in a company like Google back then," said Michael Moritz, the Sequoia partner in charge of the deal, in an interview with FORTUNE last year. "But we thought Larry and Sergey were taking a fresh look." Soon after, Yahoo anted up $10 million...
Larry and Sergey spent more time talking about how they weren't going to make money—no user registration, no blast e-mails, no banner advertising—than how they were," says a participant in Google's early discussions. On Google's website, under the heading "Ten things Google has found to be true," No. 6 still reads, "You can make money without doing evil." Not doing evil is a common concern around Google and loosely translates into avoiding anything that mars Google's user experience...
Adsense, which puts ads on nonsearch sites. Read about the New York marathon on newyorktimes.com, for instance, and Adsense serves up ads for sports drinks, running shoes, or whoever else pays...
Those close to Google say that the company has begun to more closely resemble a madhouse than any kind of serene dot-com dream. It's a tough place to work, and a tough place to do business with.
Beyond the bean-bagged lobby, 12-hour days are considered standard, and an unspoken caste system has emerged. At the top are the engineers, people in the mold of Brin and Page. At the bottom are the contractors, the 30% of Google workers who labor alongside full-timers—yet without benefits, stock options, or access to the company intranet, not to mention to meetings or social events. That's fostered anger in Google's overeducated ranks....
The most immediate threat is Yahoo. It's expanding into new areas like product search (helping people to find goods, read reviews, compare prices, and buy) and local search (enabling users to find a plumber or landscaper in their neighborhood). Google has prototype sites that provide those services (froogle.google.com and labs.google.com/location), but they're not nearly as good. With about a 5% stake in Google, Yahoo goes quiet when talking about the company. Yet it's likely Yahoo will dump the stock after the IPO. Even sooner it will stop using Google's search on its site, relying instead on its newly acquired units. Says Jeff Weiner, senior vice president in charge of search: "We have every intention of deploying Inktomi and Overture throughout all our search..."
Then there's Microsoft. The company has an army of brainiacs working on incorporating web search into MSN and its new operating system, code-named Longhorn, due out in 2006. It plans to be able to index every user's hard drive and use the information to provide better searches. "All I'll say is that search is vitally important to us," says Chris Payne, Microsoft's executive in charge of search
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