Last month Google filed for two new patents: Document Scoring Based on Traffic Associated with a Document and Document Scoring Based on Query Analysis.

The two patents are in addition to the other patents that Google has filed. Some of the information represents new takes on existing data that is being tracked while other information is brand new and should paid attention to. The information that is being collected now includes:

• when the website was set up?
• how often and how extensive are the changes that are made to the site?
• what kind of search queries are being used to find the site?
• who links to your site, who uses text links, what the text links say, and when are new links being created?
• what is your overall traffic that Google sends you?
• what is the user behavior once they click through to your site?
• what kind of topics does your webpage cover?
• domain related information

Google uses this information to assign your website a score which represents the trustworthiness of your site. This score, along with the relevancy of the search query being made, will ultimately determine where your webpage will rank in Google’s index.

This information is not necessarily new to these patents but represents an expansion of what was already being collected.

New Data Collection

What Google is now tracking that can have an impact on where your site ranks includes:

• How many ads are shown on your website and how frequently are they changed?
• What is the quality of the ads? For example, an ad that links to a high PageRank page could get a higher score for your page than an ad that links to a low PageRank or, even worse, banned Google page.
• What kind of click through rates are you getting on the ads?

It is still unclear how heavily the advertisement data will be factored into Google’s algorithm but in light of all the various attempts people are making to monetize their websites, Google is now taking notice and is tracking such information.

Keys to the Game

With Google’s new updates it will be even more important to:

• Ensure your content (now ads included) are all related. You do not want to have a page about cars and then have links and advertisements that target a different market.
• Ensure you get quality inbound links and outbound link to quality sites. The first part of this equation has always been true but with Google paying more attention to who you are linking to and who your advertisers are it will be all the more important to carefully screen your outgoing links and sponsors.

Evan Carmichael

Meet YoungEntrepreneur.com co-founder Adam Toren at this year's BlogWorld 2008!

Evan Carmichael
YoungEntrepreneur.com Blog Manager

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