Feb
14
Google AdWords Conspiracy and Taxonomies
Filed Under General, Google | Leave a Comment
In November of 2003 what was dubbed the Google Florida Update hit, with a massive uproar ensuing as websites got dropped into oblivion in the index en masse. Speculations immediately abounded that it was an “AdWords filter” or “money words filter” since it was right in the midst of the Christmas Holiday shopping season, while others called it an over-optimization filter and still others decided that the Hilltop Algo was being used, or that the re-ranking algo that was patented by Google had been implemented. With the holiday season upon us this year, it’s not unlikely that there will again be the AdWords blame game that’s played this year when the next “happening” takes place, which has to be imminent because Google’s been too quiet for too long with nothing changing. Like the calm before the storm.
Yeah, right! It was a company conspiracy to pick all the keyword words and phrases they knew were money-makers and apply a filter to all the sites pursing those to increase AdWords revenue during the shopping season, particarly in view of the upcoming IPO.
It would have been dangerous to let that go out to staff by company email in case in future some irate former employee who didn’t like the cooking went postal and exposed the whole scheme, so what they must have done is all dress up in their tin foil hats and have secret meetings in the back room of some local Mt. View saloon - just in case the Plex had been bugged by industrial saboteurs who had worked their way into the company to spy. Of course someone could have been wired, but ya gotta draw the line someplace, dontcha?
Meantime, it was stealthily added to their webmaster help section that they’d started to use stemming, so it was obvious they were doing something with words . Also, here and there we see evidence of changes or tests regarding clustering, where while it’s always been that when there are two pages from a site that are relevant one page would appear indented. Occasionally, we’ve seen pages appearing separately, without being indented for a brief season, with it then being reverted back. So that indicates something going on with sites and pages.
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/21115.htm
It always gets me thinking that beyond keywords on pages, not only regarding Google, but other search engines as well. The engines have to see something related to semantic relationships within an entire site - and not only the site itself, but the sites and individual pages they link to and the ones that link to them.
Just a few of the references I’ve accumulated on LSI:
using lsi to classify search engine spam
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/24383.htm
Using Semantic Analysis to Classify Search Engine Spam ( PDF Document)
HTML Version from the Google Cache
LSI Paper at Microsoft Research
Makes mention of using classification and taxonomies in web search
Web Search Using Automatic Classification
Paper at Stanford
Feb
13
SEO Forums discussing links after the February, 2005 Google update
Filed Under Google | Leave a Comment
It’s time there were some serious, hard-core, nitty-gritty discussions at SEO forums like there used to be in the “good old days”, and it’s refreshing to see a couple of good ones out there lately. Obviously, I’m not the only one who’s been missing the meaty discussions of old, as can be seen in this whine session at WebmasterWorld
Brian Turner started a good discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums related to how inbound links are being handled that’s a good read:
I’m inclined to suspect that it may not be that links are resulting in penalties, but that with some, they’re simply not being included in tallying the score for pages/sites, so they’re just not helping.
I’ve long been inclined to think that the location on a page has something to do with value of links (as one of many factors they can look out), and it certainly can’t be hard for Google to strip out global elements on a page they parse, including footers and navigation, to separate what’s in the main body portion, and differentiate based on physical location.
This discussion at Phil Craven’s SEO Forum at Web Workshop gets into a bit of a different aspect regarding links:
It was started several months ago, but touches on a number of relevant pointers regarding links, including whether they’re IBL’s or within the site - and also discusses the physical locales.
There are some people out there who say that “Phil Craven is evil” but be that as it may, he can always be counted on for in-depth analysis of SEO and algo issues, and that particular discussion is almost a learning lab about how to test factors. I guess if it’s actually so that “Phil Craven is evil” then he represents the more valuable side of evil. 
Feb
5
The February Rant
Filed Under General | Leave a Comment
Another of a series of rants in what must seem to be an endless stream of them; I have to very humbly admit that a lot of my actions and communications over time are based on an extremely emotional and biased viewpoint, not in the least based on personal experience and insights into the human nature of individuals and humanity at large - however distressing and disturbing as the truths may be - and all culminating in the centrality of the question: SO WHAT? If you know, or have any means to know better, your opinions and input are most welcome. But I seriously doubt it - with all due respect, of course. 
Who cares what I, or anyone else, including Jake, think about current search engine algos? What do they really think, and why in God’s name, do they even bother to read the discussions at search engine forums?
Feb
5
Back in the Saddle
Filed Under General | Leave a Comment
Thanks be to my daughter, Samantha - my very own precious girl-geek, child of my heart, who got into the database for this site and straightened out the password issue which prevented me from accessing the site for well over two months.
Thanks, sugar-pie. Mom is with you evermore, and may the Force be with you!