Comments on: Google was a links-driven search engine

By: Alex McArthur

Alex McArthur — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:09:35 +0000

Great stuff. Moved your feed from my “when I find the time list” to “must reads” ;-) .

By: Tin Pig

Tin Pig — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 14:25:23 +0000

Good article. I especially like the history.

I see this as a move in the right direction for google. The link-based algorithm is simply too easy to manipulate and does not represent a true measure of relevancy.

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 12:52:43 +0000

Great article Brian, simply stunning in its structure and message. Stumbled!

By: Brian Turner

Brian Turner — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 12:27:52 +0000

I’ve noticed this a lot as well – my interpretation is that Google are drawing results from different datacenters and comparing user preference on each using the tracking built into Google Search.

I think at least sometimes this is when Google are applying minor tweaks to the main algo – but run a test sample for user reaction, they can determine if there are any significant problems for the user experience being introduced with the new tweak.

Just my 2c, though. :)

By: Anon

Anon — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 11:51:44 +0000

Interesting post, I’ve noticed some crazy behaviour in the top 10 serps in the past month or so. One of our sites would rank extremely highly for an extremely competitve phrase then 2 days later would drop back to #30

This has happened around 5 times so far with 5 main keywords, its like they are testing our site to see if searchers will approve of our content.

However given that links still seem to trump everything, and a domain with the keywords contained seems especially popular. Maybe because of the links, but maybe because people searching see the keywords in the domain and click it?

By: Matt Ridout

Matt Ridout — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 08:55:28 +0000

An interesting take on Google – I liked the history of the algorithm

By: PPCblogger

PPCblogger — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 07:47:51 +0000

Brian – Simply a fantastic post.

By: Brian Turner

Brian Turner — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 18:48:34 +0000

Indeed – we’ve seen how different signals could be used.

What I’ve been trying to do is to go back to basics and look at everything again, from a fresh perspective.

I fired up Google, ran a search, saw sitelinks – and suddenly realised that I was looking at human data driven results. With universal, the potential is significant.

The days of link building are very subdued.

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:58:27 +0000

Nice round up and timeline Brian… I am also one that believes further user performance metrics are becoming more prevalent in the major engines. It is funny that now everyone is now stuck in the link centric thinking which now needs to be partially broken after having to convince them the value once upon a time…. how long will it take? Dunno… but many SEOs are missing the boat IMO

By: Lee Croucher

Lee Croucher — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 11:32:07 +0000

i have heard about google doing human research in major markets to check their first 20 listings are giving consumers the best sites. So gone are the days of spammers producing self gen sites as they won’t rank or last.