The Google patent application submitted in March, 2005 has generated a good deal of debate among search engine optimization experts. The patent document contains many general suggestions about direction Google wants to move their search criteria and ranking techniques in near future.

The document points out two areas in particular in which "there remains a need to improve quality of results generated by search engines." (0009) These two areas are

(a) artificially inflated rank due to spamming techniques, and (b) stale documents that rank higher than fresh ones, and therefore "degrade search results".

Google's ingenious proposal is to deal with both of these problems by focusing on history of web documents and web links. Assuming they have technology to record such a massive amount of information, their objective seems to be to keep a detailed record of pattern of changes within web pages.

This should address spam issue by revealing unnatural patterns of change. Too many links too quickly suggests "unnatural" linking activity has been taking place. Significant links that come and go might suggest that expensive links are being purchased on a temporary basis and are not "natural".

And it should address "staleness" issue by looking at way specific pages have been updated. If a page that has ranked high in specific searches has not been updated for a period of time, this will be seen as a reason to downgrade importance of that page. Other pages with more activity, more up to date information, and more linking activity, all other things being equal, will rank higher.

History is more important than ever

Quite often I get asked what magic solution is for getting better Google ranking. Sometimes questions sound fairly naive, something like this:

"I have recently established a site called wazooski.com and would like to rank much higher in Google, Yahoo and MSN. Can you tell me how to do this without spending a lot of money? Can I get into top 10 within 1 or 2 months?"

This is one of those "rookie" questions. Experienced marketers know that predicting search engine rankings is always a hit or miss affair. SEO practitioners who "guarantee" high search engine rankings are making misleading claims, intended only to sell their services.

Imagine how many sites within any competitive area are going after those "top 10" rankings. Many of your competitors have been around for a few years, so they have an established site with lots of valuable content, steady traffic, and thousands of sites linking into them. How can you expect just to throw up a site and within a month or two walk away with a "top 10" position?