My Theory about Google’s Search Algorithm
July 25, 2008
It is common knowledge that Google is the largest search engine on planet Earth at the present moment. However, less commonly known is how Google goes about deciding which websites to include in its index. Since Google’s Mission Statement is to “Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” Google’s search engine technology must be programmed to possess the ability to differentiate useful information and useful websites from those websites that offer little to no value or content.
While no one, save Google’s Engineers, has access to the structure to the programming of Google’s search engine technology, we can garner useful information from those whom Google employs. These people make descriptive blog posts through their addressing of webmaster comments, questions, and concerns. Matt Cutts is such a person. In addition to Matt Cutts, Google has its own team of bloggers who communicate information through the Official Google Blog.
While there is no silver bullet revealed, we can walk away with some powerful inferences about the programming of Google’s search engine technology. In a summation post that I found titled, ”
Technologies behind Google ranking,” quite of bit of additional information can be learned — if we read and interpret between the lines of what is actually being said.
In particular, Google says that “Synonyms are the foundation of our query understanding work,” and that “Another technology we use in our ranking system is concept identification.” These two quotations ought to reveal that article spinning will not work. Think about it. If Google has encyclopedias, dictionaries, and thesauruses at its disposal, then one can assume that they can generate a list of word substitutions for the content that it finds. Some words in a spun article will remain the same while other words in the article will be substited for words that have the same essential meaning. In other words, article spinning will not circumvent Google’s Duplicate Content Penalty. While the number of backlinks to a site will increase through article spinning, their individual and collective value will be lessened.
However, while Google has access to encyclopedias, dictionaries, and thesauruses, it still treasures original content. In other words, Google cannot anticipate the rich diversity of word combinations just because it has access to all individual word definitions and their variants. Google cannot say, “I know the content of every website in existence because I know every possible word that can be used.” To this end, a human mind must transcribe thoughts into words under the guiding principle of a main idea — and this is what Google treasures. Google seeks to understand the movement of the human mind by finding statistical relationships between the particular words used to communicate ideas. This statistical relationship, in my mind, is evaluated against the background of what Google already possess — dictionaries, encyclopedias, thesauruses, and grammar books.
And this brings me to my next point: grammar. Have you ever wondered why Google ranks journalism sites at the top of its search engine results pages (SERPs)? My hypothesis is that in addition to devouring new content, Google rates the “taste” of the new content it finds. Content using good grammar and punctuation “tastes” better than content using poor grammar and poor punctuation. If Google seeks to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” then grammatically correct content might be interpreted as being more useful than grammatically incorrect content with all other variants being equal. In its Webmaster Guidelines, Google recommends that webmasters “create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.” While we do not know how Google evaluates clarity and accuracy, we know that these are things that Google will be looking for when it encounters new content. Therefore, take a moment to reflect about which elements both add to and detract from clarity and accuracy. Elements such as grammar and punction dance in harmony with font size and font color on a website with good content. When this is done correctly, another one of Google’s axioms is satisfied: Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines.
In essence, I believe that the programmers of Google’s powerful search engine are attempting to endow Google with artificial intelligence. To this end, I can assume that Google is using statistical methods to assign a numerical value to the “power” or “strength” of page’s content. And while the formula for these statistical methods will not be disclosed, we can make good hypothesises regarding which practices will result in a stronger statistical relationships. Gammar, punctuation, average word length, synonyms, content presentation, the number of backlinks & an analysis of the content from those backlinks that adds to or detracts from relational value, contribute to the strength and originality of new content.
Royalty Free Music for YouTube Videos
July 22, 2008
If you’re looking for high quality audio tracks and high quality audio looping samples, I recommend that you check out AudioJungle.
Music categories include: Music Packs, Ambient, Breakbeat, Classical, Chill-Out, Corporate, Drum and Bass, Electronica, Experimental, Funk, Garage, Hip Hop, House, Jazz, New Age, Rock, Pop, Trance, and World Beat.
Sound categories include: Game Sounds, Cartoon Sounds, Sound Packs, Interface Sounds, Transitions & Movement, Buttons & Menus, Nature Sounds, Domestic Sounds, Urban Sounds, Industrial Sounds, Futuristic Sounds, and Human Sounds.
ABOUT FLASHDEN / AUDIOJUNGLE
At FlashDen you can buy and sell royalty-free stock files for use in Adobe Flash projects. Files sell for between 1 and 40 dollars depending on the complexity, quality and use of the file. Anyone is free to sign up for an account and begin trading or purchasing files.
The site is home to a bustling community of Flash designers, developers and devotees. At FlashDen we like to say that it is this community who really owns the site and we do our best to make sure they get the most out of it through programs to generate income, interactivity, news, competitions and whatever else we can dream up.
Additionally FlashDen is eager to grow and support not only FlashDen users but Flash users everywhere. We do this by supporting community projects, competitions and initiatives. If you have something you think would benefit the Flash community, get in touch!
Since this site offers Royalty Free Music, you can be sure you will not infringe on copyrights when creating videos for YouTube. Their website offers a nice user interface, and it is possible to fund an account with as little as $20.00 USD through Paypal or through a credit card. People seeking royalty free images from iStockphoto should already be accustomed to paying a small fee in order to use Royalty Free items that do not infringe on copyrights.
On AudioJungle’s website, it is possible to hear a sample of music which is found to be interesting. “Hear it before you buy it,” in other words. However, in order to prevent people from grabbing audio tracks without paying for them, all samples will have a voice saying “Flashden” every few seconds. Naturally, this audio watermark is removed when the file in question is purchased.
I cannot brag enough about this website. Within the first few seconds of finding this website through Google, I deposited $20.00 and bought several songs. I came across a few songs made by Stefan Gustafsson, also known as “Solidbeats,” and was throughly impressed with what I heard. There’s some serious talent here, and while the site is still growing, the bar for the quality of songs released is very high indeed.