{"id":17194,"date":"2013-05-15T07:00:48","date_gmt":"2013-05-15T14:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eigene-homepage-erstellen.net\/?p=17194"},"modified":"2013-05-15T07:00:48","modified_gmt":"2013-05-15T14:00:48","slug":"3-google-algorithms-we-know-about-200-we-dont","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eigene-homepage-erstellen.net\/blog\/seo\/3-google-algorithms-we-know-about-200-we-dont.htm","title":{"rendered":"3 Google Algorithms We Know About & 200 We Don\u2019t"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When I meet with clients or present at conferences, I am always asked: “How do I rank high on Google for (insert keyword-phrase-du-jour)?” I give the standard answer: “Only the search engineers and Google can tell you and they aren’t talking.”<\/p>\n

Inevitably, the questioner looks dejected, mutters a slur on my credentials, and walks away.  I scream silently in my head: “Don’t kill the messenger because we are all hapless Wile E. Coyotes chasing the Larry and Sergey Road Runner with zero chance of catching them, no matter what we order from ACME!”<\/p>\n

Thirteen years ago, before the Cone of Silence dropped on Google’s method of operation, we got a glimpse of the method behind their madness. This, combined with the common knowledge of the foundational tenets of all search engines, gives us some idea of what’s going on behind that not-so-simple box on the white page.<\/p>\n

In this post, I am going to explore the 3 algorithms that we know for sure Google is using to produce search results, and speculate about the 200+ other algorithms that we suspect they are using based on patent filings, reverse engineering, and the Ouija board.<\/p>\n

What is an algorithm (you might ask)?<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are many definitions of algorithm. The National Institute of Standards and Technology defines an algorithm as “a computable set of steps to achieve a desired result.”  Ask a developer and they will tell you that an algorithm is “a set of instructions (procedures or functions) that is used to accomplish a certain task.” My favorite definition, and the one that I’m going with, comes from MIT’s Kevin Slavin’s TED Talk “How Algorithms Shape Our World<\/a>”: algorithms are “math that computers use to decide stuff.”<\/p>\n

3 Google algorithms we know about<\/h2>\n

PageRank<\/h3>\n

The most famous Google algorithm is PageRank, a pre-query value that has no relationship to the search query. In its infancy, the PageRank algorithm used links pointing to the page as an indication of its importance. Larry Page, after whom the algorithm is named, used the academic citation model where the papers citing another were endorsements of its authority. Strangely enough, they do not have citation rings or citation buying schemes as with web links. Warning, scary, eye-bleeding computational math ahead.<\/p>\n