Google Patent Specifications Part 3

Spam and the Google Sandbox Effect

Google is taking serious new measures in an effort to crack down on search engine spam offenders.

Welcome to part three in our six part series about the new Google patent specifications and what it may mean to your website's rankings.

Google Patent Fights Search Engine Spam

Google states clearly that decayed or stale results might be desirable for information that doesn't necessarily need updating, while fresh content is good for results that require it. Seasonal content such as winter clothing or vacation destinations are excellent examples of content that requires regular updating.

A page related to winter clothing for example, may rank higher in winter than summer. The geographical location of the searcher may even be considered and factored into the search results. Likewise, specific vacation destinations might rank higher in the SERPs in certain geographic regions during certain times of the year.

Google can even monitor and score pages by recording and tracking their click through rate for seasonal changes, which means your position in the serps could change according to the time of year.

Section 0128 in the Google patent filing reveals that you shouldn't change the focus of too many documents at once:

"A significant ce in the set of topics associated with a document may indicate that the document has changed owners and previous document indicators, such as score, anchor text, etc., are no longer reliable.

Similarly, a spike in the number of topics could indicate spam. For example, if a particular document is associated with a set of one or more topics over what may be considered a 'stable' period of time and then a (sudden) spike occurs in the number of topics associated with the document, this may be an indication that the document has been taken over as a 'doorway' document.

Another indication may include the disappearance of the original topics associated with the document. If one or more of these situations are detected, then [Google] may reduce the relative score of such documents and/or the links, anchor text, or other data associated the document."

This means that Google's 'sandbox effect' (aging delay) may be experienced when making too many changes to your website or web pages at one time. Recent observation indicates that this is more often the rule than the exception.

Avoiding the Google Sandbox Effect

Taking into consideration, information contained in the new Google patent, there are a number of basic strategies to adhere to if your placement in Google is important to you:

• Keep your web pages themed, relevant and consistent
• Establish credibility and reliability, because the days of spamming Google are nearing an end
• Spread significant, mult-page content changes over time
• Retain original keywords on each page so as to maintain theme consistency
• Implement the use of lateral keywords to support and reinforce your vertical keyword(s) and terms
• Beware of anything that could be interpreted as keyword stuffing
• Determine if the keywords you're using require static or fresh search results (seasonal for example)
• Update your web site content accordingly

For sites that require fresh search results, implement the use of RSS feeds. RSS feeds play a significant role in keeping pages fresh and at the top of the SERPs.

Their is no question that with these most recent changes in the way Google determines your position in the serps, webmasters must look ahead, plan and manage their domains more tightly than ever before. Anything less and you are flirting with search position disaster!

Read the next in our series of articles on Google patent specifications and how they effect your website rankings, Google Rankings and Your Link Building Strategy.

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