eConsultant

Search Rank Easy to Manipulate

An interview with a Search Engine Optimzer company - that itself doesn't rank 1st ... but guarantees others ?!! Rankings change every time Google tweaks ... but it seems companies still think it's good money to invest!

Wired News: Search Rank Easy to Manipulate

"'The search engines created the monster,' he said. 'It only exists because Google's algorithm places a lot of emphasis on link popularity.'

PageRank, the software at the heart of Google's technology, may also be its Achilles' heel. For every search, it 'performs an objective measurement of the importance of web pages by solving an equation of more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms.' In reality, Google relies mostly on two criteria: The number of sites that link to yours and, to a lesser degree, the content of your page as it relates to the keywords selected. (For example, the number of times the words appear on that page).

As the company explains: 'PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves 'important' weigh more heavily and help to make other pages 'important.''

That means that links have value. They are a type of currency, and the more links to your site you can attract, the better your chances of cracking the top 10 of results. This is especially important because about 90 percent of searchers looking to shop rarely venture past the first page."

This entry was posted on Friday, March 18, 2005 at 11:38 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.