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Much has happened in the last year regarding how Google evaluates
links. The search engine company is keeping their "secret sauce" secret,
however it is common knowledge that links from some sites carry more weight than
links from other sites. Those highly sought Web sites that provide a big boost
in Google rankings typically have high
pagerank and a strong reputation for a particular keyword theme. These sites are
the focus for text link advertising.
The hilltop algorithm is thought to be a key part of the Google
algorithm. The hilltop component is very important as it provides validation of
a link. A outbound link points to another site on a similar topic, that site is
thought to be important. Getting links from these authority sites is one of the
key tasks of an SEO
Company.
Hilltop Algorithm
Hilltop is the patented
algorithm provided for Google’s use by its creators, Krishna Bharat and
George A. Mihaila of the University of Toronto.
It is an algorithm
that finds so-called expert documents related to particular keyword topics.
Hilltop (current implementation is known by the phrase Austin update) emphasizes
the voting power of "authority sites." These are Web
sites (or pages) that Google assesses to be of strong importance on a particular
keyword topic. They’re often sites/pages that have high PageRank and a high
link reputation for a particular set of keywords. Not having links from these
authority sites has been suggested as the cause of the recent spate of poor rankings
in Google.
Hilltop is supposed
to act as an adjunct calculation that feeds the best topic-specific sites into
the full Google algorithm equation. Some suggest that Hilltop is built right into
PageRank, actually affecting the PR of sites in the Google index.
The revised PageRank
calculation is suggested here: {(1-d)+a (RS)} * {(1-e)+b (PR * fb)} * {(1-f)+c
(LS)}.
Hilltop would seem
to reward a closed loop circuit among Web sites, all revolving around key “expert
documents” much like the planets revolve around the Sun. This Web ring system
would be a dead end, since new sites would never appear in the rankings unless
they were “approved” by the ring leader. That would change Google’s
index from a democracy to an autocracy.
Although Hilltop may
be a good solution to faltering Google index quality, it focuses attention on
key Web sites making them the future target of index manipulators. Will such a
new algorithm dredge up all the really good sites that are currently down in the
range of 30 to 100 and put them where users can get them? I’ve done some
dredging myself in those dark regions and I didn’t find many gold nuggets.
If Hilltop is supposed to improve the index quality, it seems much-a-do about
nothing.
From a general perspective,
it would also encourage sinister-type collaboration among corporations to dominate
the Google index. If corporations don’t own the expert documents themselves
already, they can simply purchase them.
So in some ways, Hilltop
may be good medicine for Google while at the same time be poison for its future.
Expert documents are
nothing new. Google has always had an authority site element in its overall ranking
algorithm, but Hilltop may go even further to affect a site’s PageRank.
Would that explain the complete disappearance of so many Web sites in the rankings?
Wouldn’t those particular sites just fall a little? And why didn’t
their PR as indicated in the Google toolbar fall as well?
A few people observed
that most of the sites affected had a lower than 5 PageRank. Did Google only apply
the penalties to sites with lower PageRank? Something’s just not jiving
here. It could be it’s not a PageRank thing, but rather a link reputation
factor.
More Inconsistencies
Another inconsistency
about how Hilltop may be implemented in Google is this; that affected sites still
ranked high for other, related two, three or four word searches
is because Hilltop couldn’t find an authority site for the those keyword
phrases, to pass into the equation. Why can’t Hilltop find authority sites
for those other keyword phrases? It couldn’t have looked very hard. Did
Google only apply Hilltop to a predetermined set of keywords or was it only applied
to a certain of two or three keyword phrases? My owns research during that time
showed that 4 keyword phrases were being affected. So, it is difficult to know
for sure what is going on.
The Infamous
Hit List
Conspiracy theorists
have suggested that the new rankings were affected by a hit list of commercial
keywords, chosen because of their popularity and their relation to online commerce.
If users couldn’t rank in the free editorial results, they would be forced
to by Adwords ads. Hilltop pundits suggest that there never was any filter involving
a hit list. Others argued fairly persuasively that Google was trying to force
top ranking commercial sites to start paying their way by buying Adwords ads.
Still others said that Google’s new over-optimization penalties could explain
some of the new results. We’ll get into that in a moment. It is odd that
all of these appear to play a role, and that they were implemented full scale
at the same time. That’s quite a beta test for Google to run full scale
at the most important time of year for commercial sites.
One additional theory
is that Google doesn't own the rights to the original algorithm and can't launch
an IPO until it's search engine is free and clear of all liens. Stanford University
may own the rights and therefore Stanford's are Google's debts unless Google gets
an original algorithm of its own.
One interesting characteristic
of the Florida Update (that I discovered), was that some sites with the target
keywords in the domain name were completely absent in the top 100 rankings. For
instance, domains that had the keywords search engine optimization
in them didn’t rank in the top 100 on searches for search engine optimization.
Right away, you’d think Google was penalizing sites with keywords in the
domain name. However, many high PageRank sites didn't seem to be affected by this
peculiar result.
With the end of the
full-scale Florida update, most affected sites have returned to the results pages.
Did Hilltop all of a sudden find more 3 and 4 keyword authority sites or did it
just dump the 2-keyword authority sites it had been using? Did they just turn
off Hilltop for now? A little confusing, especially since the transitions in Google
rankings were slow and it made it difficult for algorithm analysts to figure out
which factors were at work. Google’s making it tough.
How about Over-optimization?
It could be that sites
that were using search engine optimization in their html titles, H1 tags and frequently
in anchor text, and which had search engine optimization in their domain names
were considered to have gone beyond the acceptable level of optimization. Actually,
the use of those words is very natural for the site. Even after removing those
keywords in the title tag and reducing their occurrence in body text, their rankings
on certain keyword searches didn’t change. I’m sure some site owners
feared they were permanently banned at that point. Nothing they did changed their
Google rankings. Did Google just freeze everyone’s presence in their index
at a particular point in time so they couldn’t be manipulated? Or, did Google
do this as a way of stabilizing their index, fearing that their search engine
is like a ship without an anchor? Is the loss of Yahoo creating a stability problem?
Is Hilltop just a pseudo-replacement for Yahoo’s directory?
Keywords in
the Domain Name
I would suggest that
in the specific case of keyword-rich domain names, that Google applied such a
harsh demerit penalty against these sites, that nothing the site owner could do
would help compensate. Recently, such sites have reappeared in the top rankings.
Are there any sites currently ranking at the top that are over-optimized and have
the target keywords in the domain? Yes, there are. However, the Florida storm
could return anytime.
Hilltop is not a good
enough explanation for this. I believe Google simply toned down its anti-optimization
demerit system so that such sites could compensate for the fact that they already
had the keywords in the domain name. That same weakening of the filter has allowed
a lot of sites to return to their former glory.
This makes sense from
a business and quality standpoint. Business-wise, why would Google mess with a
formula that’s gotten them to the very top? The noise from the Florida update
has renewed customers’ interest in Google’s competitors in the search
space such as Yahoo and MSN. That’s the top outcome of the experiment. Webmasters
and SEO pros all renewed their awareness of other options. Some studies show MSN
and Yahoo's marketshare have grown.
Google’s algorithm
changes are in direct response to its business ambitions and insecurities.
There are rumors that
the other search engines are following suit on the use of a pseudo Google
filter. It makes sense for them to use any technique to rid their indexes
of spam. I might add that there are still a lot of spammy
sites ranking well even with the reviled hidden text. Another important issue
is the buying of text link advertising on authority
sites. This takes Google far away from where it wants to be.
Whatever Google decides
to do, search
engine optimization professionals will have a more difficult challenge and
only the best will be able to produce good results. They just kicked it up a couple
of notches!
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