A view on Googles Patent: Information Retrieval Based on Historical Data

Google doesnt stop innovating their search engine, and there where others try to follow, Google is not just 1 step ahead, but 10 steps ahead. Their latest innovation, which actually may already be in place for a year or longer, can be found in the patent: Information Retrieval Based on Historical Data.

The abstract of the patent is: A system identifies a document and obtains one or more types of history data associated with the document. The system may generate a score for the document based, at least in part, on the one or more types of history data.

This article has the goal to give a implified representation of this patent + contains recommendations as to what would be the best SEO techniques to obtain high rankings, with a specific focus on links. This article is the opinion of the writer and following recommendation in this article is done at your own risk.

Googles search results have been increasingly difficult to explain and many theories have been developed on what is going on. Most popular is the sand box theory, which says that a new site is put in a virtual sand box and has to wait until it has aged before obtaining high rankings. This patent has some excellent information that can explain this phenomenon.

Information Retrieval

The information that this invention of Google is claimed to retrieve based on the historical data are:

1. Age/Time
2. Change
3. Trends

A score is calculated based on the above 3 factors which can then, at least partially, be used to rank the selected pages.

Historical Data

The patent describes a huge amount of historical data. The following is an overview of most items for which historical data can be measured:

• Pages/sites
• Links
• Anchor Texts
• Content
• Query
• Traffic
• Ranking
• User
• Domain

Ranking Based On Information Retrieved From Historical Data

The patent describes in quite a lot of detail how selected pages are ranked based on the information retrieved from historical data. This chapter will describe the basic logic applied.

Age/Time

Of all historical data a date of inception is used to determine 4 important values:

• Age
• Average Age
• Date
• Average Date

These factors can be determined for pages, links, anchor text, content, topics, queries, etc. Comparing the age or date of a page to the average of the site for example tells the search engine if this information is relatively new or old.

Comparing the average age or date of a page to the average age or date of all pages selected for a query (keyword phrase) tells the search engine if the page is relatively new or old. This information can be used to rank the selected pages.

Comparing to an average has the advantage that there is no preset base of rules that determine the rankings of a page. For one query 6 months may be considered new (product descriptions for example) while for another page 6 days may be considered old (news items for example). It all depends on the average age.

This same logic applies to links. In order to determine how popular a page or site is, the average age of all back links tells the search engine if the popularity of the page is recent or not. It makes sense that if most back links have been obtained 4 years ago and that hardly anybody has been interested to link to this page/site since then, that the page is not as popular as the existing back links would suggest.

The patent goes even as far as determining age factors for anchor texts of links.

Change

Information changes over time. Opinions change, knowledge changes, popularity changes, etc. Like mentioned before, a page that was popular 4 years ago, may be totally forgotten now, but still have most of its backlinks that were obtained when the page actually was popular. However, if this page all the sudden becomes popular again, and new back links start showing up, the average age of the backlinks will remain high. This will prevent the page of ranking high.

Detecting changes is crucial to give old information the chance to rank high again. Consequently, the lack of change can be a reason to lower the rank of a page.

Trends

Even though comparing to averages is a great way to get information about freshness, it fails to recognize smaller events like a sudden increase in popularity of a page. Though detecting changes do help to recognize smaller events, more information can be obtained by detecting trends.

Sudden increases of popularity can be caused by seasonal events like Christmas or the Super Bowl. For this reason the search engine will try to determine trends within pages links, anchor text, content, topics, queries, etc. Detecting trends makes it possible to rank pages higher that would not be ranked high with the standard ranking methods or with comparing to average ages or dates. Google has recognized here a very important fact of information: Relevance and importance of information is (con)temporary.

Detecting Spam Using Historical Data

Having all kinds of historical data available can be used to detect search engine spam. Unexpected events that happen to a site can be an indication of spam. Obviously a strong improvement of 1 single factor would not be a direct indication of spam, generally multiple factors are showing strange behavior when a site is using spam to increase rankings. It would not be in Googles interest to penalize a site for advertising. However, excessive advertising in sites/pages that are totally unrelated will not do your site any good.

Recommendations

Nothing changed in regards to links. This patent pretty much confirms what we at www.textlinkbrokers.com already knew and have been explaining to our customers as well. The following recommendations can be helpful:

Keep links related

Related links matter, unrelated links can be considered spam.

Build links on a continuous moderate bases

As the patent describes, the average age of your backlinks should not be too high. It is therefore wise to continue adding backlinks to secure a reasonable average age of all your backlinks. How many you need to add over time depends on your market.

Be better than the average

Very important is to be better than the average, but dont overdo it. It would be expensive and unnecessary.

Focus on seasonal events

A good way to increase the success of your website is to set up text link campaigns for seasonal events. Start your advertising campaign 2 to 3 months before the actual event to give Google the time to find the links and update your sites information with it. After the event you can let these links go again.

Spread links over multiple sites (unique backlinks)

A very important factor is the number of unique websites in your backlinks. Google seems to put a strong emphasis on this factor.

Peter Faber is an Internet marketing consultant working for http://www.textlinkbrokers.com, an SEO company specialized in link building. He has his own personal blog at http://www.seo-works.com.

Trademark Law - The Protection of Famous Trademarks

Famous trademarks are awarded significant protection under the Canadian Trademarks Act. The trademarks act protects the owners of trademarks from others who would use a confusingly similar trademark. Section 6 of the act defines what constitutes confusion. In particular, section 6 states that the use of a trademark causes confusion with another trademark if the use is likely to lead to the inference that the wares or services associated with those trademarks are manufactured, sold, leased, hired or performed by the same person or business, whether or not the wares or services are of the same general class. Hence, trademarks which are quite famous, can theoretically be protected against others who would use similar trademarks for completely different products or services. This has lead some to speculate that famous trademarks can be enforced beyond the scope of their original trademark registrations. Hence, the trademark registrations for the famous trademark VIRGIN, used by the Virgin group of companies, could theoretically be enforced against any person or company who used the trademark VIRGIN for virtually any product or service.

The supreme court of Canada in the recent case of Mattel Inc. V. 3894207 Canada Inc. has clarified the law concerning the issue of confusion as applied to famous trademarks. The case involved a numbered company which operated a chain of restaurants in the Montreal area under the trademark BARBIE'S. The numbered company filed a trademark application in order to protect its trademark. The application was approved by the trademarks office, but later opposed by Mattel Inc. on the basis that the mark was allegedly confusing with Mattel's registered trademark BARBIE. The opponent, Mattel, brought forward survey evidence which demonstrated that, in the mind of the people surveyed, that there might possibly be a link between the applicant's restaurant and the opponents trademark. Despite Mattel's evidence, the opposition board rejected Mattel's position. Mattel appealed to the Federal Court. The Opposition board's decision was confirmed by the Federal Court and then again by the Federal Court of Appeal. Mattel appealed yet again to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The Supreme court dealt with two principal issues, namely the nature of confusion and the nature of the evidence used to find confusion. On the issue of confusion, the court accepted Mattel's contention that the BARBIE trademark was famous. Indeed, the justices agreed with Mattel's contention that the BARBIE trademark had reached the status of a cultural icon. Nevertheless, in the court's opinion, the mark was famous only with respect to dolls and not with respect to restaurant services. While the court concluded that resemblance of the wares/services is not a requirement for a finding of confusion, a significant difference in the nature of wares/services used in association with two trademarks was an important consideration in determining confusion. Simply because the BARBIE trademark was famous with respect to dolls, that fame, in itself, did not render the mark famous in other areas such as restaurant services. In effect, the court held that since the "doll" business and the restaurant business appealed to different tastes and largely different clienteles, there was no likelihood of confusion between the two trademarks. As to the issue of the survey evidence introduced by Mattel, the court dismissed it as irrelevant. The court noted that the test is one of likelihood of confusion, i.e. that there must be a finding that the two marks are likely to be confused. The court noted that the survey asked the question "Do you believe that the company that makes BARBIE dolls might have anything to do with this sign or logo". The survey asked a question addressing the issue of possible confusion, not likely confusion. The court seemed to leave open the door for the possible relevance of this type of survey evidence, provided of course the wording of the question resulted in a clear test of likelihood of confusion. Of course, evidence of actual confusion would have been highly relevant; however, no such evidence was submitted.

While this case does seem to limit the scope of protection afforded to famous trademarks, the case did leave the door open to marks whose fame was such that confusion could be found even if the competing mark was used for very different wares/services. Indeed, the court sited the example of the VIRGIN trademark, which has been used with a diverse nature of wares and services including soft drinks, music, games, resorts, cellular phones, clothing, books, cosmetics, credit cards and even air lines. The fame of the VIRGIN trademark may be of such breadth that using a similar mark for an unrelated service or product may result in a likelihood of confusion. In essence, since the VIRGIN trademark is famous in such a variety of different areas, it is possible that the average consumer might be confused if confronted with a similar trademark in a line of business not presently occupied by Richard Branson's group of companies.

Elias Borges is a lawyer and a registered patent & trademark agent with Borges & Rolle LLP in Toronto, Canada. patent lawyer