For a long time my blogs have performed amazingly well with broke the news of Google's Patent Application for SEO Round Table posted a synopsis lifted from the Later on in the patent, they also mention that feeds are also included within the documents that are compared and rated.
two distinct sets of data are used to determine a score of a blog (or blog post) in response to a search query–the topical relevance of the blog (or blog post) to the terms in the search query and the quality of the blog (or blog post), which is independent of the query terms. The quality of the blog (or blog post) may positively or negatively affect the score of the blog (or blog post)
Relevancy - this applies to the search term, thus Google will analyse the blog page, and they will also in some way determine the relevance to the whole blog.
Quality - this is irrespective of the search term, so think about factors from outside your nicheGoogle Blog Search - Positive Factors Affecting Search Quality | Relevancy
- Popularity of the blog document
A number of news aggregator sites (commonly called "news readers" or "feed readers") exist where individuals can subscribe to a blog document (through its feed). Such aggregators store information describing how many individuals have subscribed to given blog documents. A blog document having a high number of subscriptions implies a higher quality for the blog document
This patent was first of all applied for 13th September 2005, with Google Blog Search launched 13 September 2005. At the time they were logically not basing this on numbers available for Google Reader subscribers. The Google Reader blog was launched October 21, 2005 with a post saying they had been up and running for 2 weeks.
Maybe there is a coincidence between the 2 events.So which data were Google basing this part of their patent on? Some services such as Technorati and Bloglines do provide readership data, as does Feedburner, though most services report readership data as they are collecting new blog posts to a service like Feedburner, who aggregate the statistics.
It seems there might be some value is collecting Technorati favorites (my reciprocation policy might be well worth it) beyond limited bragging rights. Google of course through Google Reader now have access to lots of usage data, so maybe other sources will eventually be phased out.
- Implied popularity of the blog document
This implied popularity may be identified by, for example, examining the click stream of search results. For example, if a certain blog document is clicked more than other blog documents when the blog document appears in result sets, this may be an indication that the blog document is popular and, thus, a positive indicator of the quality of the blog document.
Click data from search results, possible from Google Toolbar users.
- Existence of the blog document in blogrolls
The existence of the blog document in blogrolls may be a positive indication of the quality of the blog document. It will be appreciated that blog documents often contain not only recent entries (i.e., posts), but also "blogrolls," which are a dense collection of links to external sites (usually other blogs) in which the author/blogger is interested. A blogroll link to a blog document is an indication of popularity of that blog document, so aggregated blogroll links to a blog document can be counted and used to infer magnitude of popularity for the blog document.
Everything I have ever read has suggested that for normal search, blogroll links that are site wide carry diminishing value. Just because it is listed here as part of the calculation does not necessarily mean that everyone should start building up huge blogrolls… well unless they want to game Technorati and have a blog network.
- Existence of the blog document in a high quality blogroll
The existence of the blog document in a high quality blogroll may be a positive indication of the quality of the blog document. A high quality blogroll is a blogroll that links to well-known or trusted bloggers. Therefore, a high quality blogroll that also links to the blog document is a positive indicator of the quality of the blog document.
Another revelation, links on high quality pages are worth more than links on low quality pages.
Remember that "blog document" can mean both blog page and blog site
Can blogroll just refer to a list of links on what is identified as a blog. Thus a column of links to related pages might also class as a blogroll, whether in the sidebar or below the content.
Thus a list of links to related documents on the same site could be looked on as a blogroll on a blog document.Related links plugins are very powerful, especially if you also include them in content that gets syndicated by design, or by sploggers.
- Tagging of the blog document
Tagging of the blog document may be a positive indication of the quality of the blog document. Some existing sites allow users to add "tags" to (i.e., to "categorize") a blog document. These custom categorizations are an indicator that an individual has evaluated the content of the blog document and determined that one or more categories appropriately describe its content, and as such are a positive indicator of the quality of the blog document.
Well some sites do allow you to tag in a meaningful way, maybe Google uses shared tags from Del.icio.us and other sites, but many of those use nofollow extensively.
It is my own belief that self tagging content heavily with plugins such as Ultimate Tag Warrior helps a huge amount. I have given lots of examples before, but more recent examples includetoolbar pagerank
google reader feedburner
feedburner google reader
compete toolbar
duplicate content supplemental resultsYes, I am just going down the inbound traffic results looking for likely candidates that rank well in both blog and normal search and aren't totally obscure. These are subjects that sites in my niche have also talked about, with the keywords in the title, and which you would expect to rank higher than my own content.
This doesn't just affect blogsearch, Google have been using it for some time with the main results as well.
Here are my toolbar pagerank update I spent some time studying Matt Cutts' blog, and also looking at how pagerank was being transferred around my own site. Pagerank is only slightly useful as a guide, and only immediately after an update.
Rather than repeat myself, you can read about my CommentsSuggest a Correction
Found an error or have a suggestion? Let us know and we'll review it.
No comments yet. Be the first to comment!