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As the world of search has grown to include behavioural and geo-graphic signals, many optimizers began to wonder about the value of ranking reports. The conventional thinking being that if we cannot definitively know the ranking of a given page, how do we valuate it? This is of great importance for those of us providing SEO services Those in the world of ‘Local SEO’ are keenly aware of the issues related to targeting specific markets and Google data centers. If you are targeting more than one market then it becomes extensively harder to attain and measure related rankings. If we now look at personalization elements relating to geo-graphic locations and behavioural data, rankings become even more of a moving target. Are rankings relevant? (download The Google Re-ranking Study ) We decided to look at some isolated (informational) queries with a group of volunteers from around the ol USofA to see what may or may not be happening. Considering the weight that rankings have always played in the SEO industry, this was an area well worth investigating. The main goal of this particular exercise was to see if there was enough to warrant further investigation into other query types/spaces. While there are certainly a variety of potential factors that do cause re-ranking across individual queries, it is not as much chaos as you may think. If anything there was a degree of stability among top rankings, simply more of re-ranking of top document than wholesale change. This does mean there is still some inherent value to be had for top search rankings in Google – although more adaptation is prudent. This though, is nothing new in modern search optimization. Get the report today!! For more… please feel free to download the report; The Google Re-ranking Study NOTE; if you volunteer for future studies, we will send raw data from those studies for your own analysis – it’s optional though. |
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Using concepts for Ad Targeting - Click here for original Patent filing This patent deals with serving Ads based upon keywords or moreover, topical ‘concepts’ to help and determine ad ‘relevancy’. Yes, here I am once again discussing ‘relevance’ – I hope 2008 brings me a new hobby. This time I am looking ( thanks Bill ) at the Ad serving world. I do feel it is important as many of the concepts relating to establishing meaning or ‘themes’ to content/information/words is much the same in this area is it is in the ‘organic’ search processes. There is a bunch of the usual mind numbers as far as the nuts and bolts of user account setting such as geo-location, budget, keywords desired, to the server side calls for number of ads to be displayed to size/real estate available for them. Of interest there is the checking for geo-location issues from say a search query to a regionally targeted ad (sounds like IP delivery er.. cloaking to me?). What’s the point? |
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Ranking documents based on large data sets - Click here for original Patent filing Hello all…. How are we today? We’re gonna try melting our brains once again with some notes from a June 2007 Google patent that is a thrilling tale of ranking and re-ranking documents… not a good bedtime story unless your tea is real hot. Last time we were looking at establishing relevance with; Learning a probabilistic generative model for text - and this time we will look at some ways of ranking results based upon this model. …. And away. Ranking and re-ranking from past user data | “a ranking model that predicts a likelihood that a document will be selected by: storing information associated with a plurality of prior searches, determining a prior probability of selection based, at least in part, on the information associated with the prior searches, and generating the ranking model based, at least in part on the prior probability of selection; training the ranking model using a data set that includes approximately tens of millions of instances; identifying documents relating to a search query; scoring the documents based, at least in part, on the ranking model; forming search results for the search query from the scored documents; and outputting the search results.” | If you’re still awake after that… I think we’ll be ok. Once again we’re touching on using prior searches (and likely user sessions) and probabilities as with the recent review of ‘Method and apparatus for learning a probabilistic generative model for text’ (atch Link). We’re also implementing training data and creation of rules based upon the method that are relative to that particular document as well. Give it a read as well at some point for reference. |
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Method and apparatus for learning a probabilistic generative model for text - Click here for Original Patent
This is an interesting method that seeks to ‘teach’ the system how to relate various documents, or more appropriately, the TEXT within the documents, from semantics to link nodes. Or as stated at one point – “a system that learns concepts by learning an explanatory model of text”. This is something they have worked on for a while and can been seen in the earlier related patents; Test classification system and method and Method and system for creating improved search queries Moving along…. In section 2 – Related Art – we have; | “Processing text in a way that captures its underlying meaning--its semantics--is an often performed but poorly understood task. This function is most often performed in the context of search engines, which attempt to match documents in some repository to queries by users. It is sometimes also used by other library-like sources of information, for example to find documents with similar content. In general, understanding the semantics of text is an extremely useful subcomponent of such systems. Unfortunately, most systems written in the past have only a rudimentary understanding, focusing only on the words used in the text, not the meaning behind them.” | Call me a Phrase Based Indexing and Retrieval junky ( and you’d be right), but once again the concepts apply. The whole PaIR methodology sought to do just this – further comprehend the actual meaning of a document/text block rather than simply looking at individual words. For those paying attention, Google showed interest in the direction of ‘semantics’ when it purchased Applied Semantics and it’s ‘Latent Semantic Analysis’ technologies back around 2004 or so – though presumably for their AdWords/AdSense program. So this is not a new direction. |
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Call me a freak.. I can take it…. Or call me old… cause I am getting there, but once upon a time links meant more than ToolBar PageRank and SERP referrers, they meant actual surf-in traffic. I wanted to start out by stating that it is still a consideration. Don’t focus obsessively on building links willy-nilly in an attempt to rocket up the ranks and become a gazillionaire!! Don’t fool yourself, some links can actually bring in some pretty good traffic all on their own folks - don't get myopic. "It's like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don't concentrate on the finger, or you will miss all the heavenly glory." Bruce Lee in Enter The Dragon (1974) … next, some basics; |
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