A NY Times reporter was recently allowed to spend a full day with the top Google search engineers (such as Amit Singhal, Udi Manber, and Matt Cutts), and wrote this fascinating 4 page article. My biggest "wow" came when I read that Google changed their algorithms so frequently (6+ per week).
Interesting piece, but it boggles my mind that Google would reveal any of this stuff. Why give competitors any tidbit that could help them? What's the benefit for G? I can't think of any.
Interesting article, thanks. I couldn't find the quote about how often Google update their algorithm - where does this bit come? One item that surprised me was the comment on diversity of results. If after all the rankings are calculated for a search, the top 10 results don't properly reflect the diversity of views on that subject, the 10 results presented will be changed to reflect the diveristy. I can see the argument in favour of this - but it does mean that you could optimise your site, and get a position that "deserves" to be say 8th or 9th on the first page, but you might get bumped down to the 2nd or 3rd page if other points of view are deemed to be important enough. Interesting! Howard
Think of it this way...They give out information that makes them great now, but in a week, they'll have something that makes them great then. By the time their competition can take what is great now, something is already great then. Make sense?
no doubt very informative yes i really appreciate their approach towards webmaster especially to small webmaster. Sharing Secrets are not bad.
I think the Google team simply reveals some general points in their overall policy (like the algo being changed every 6+ weeks and the like) but not entering into any details. That doesn't work against them at all, imho.
that's true, they will never let you know their "secret" anyway, i don't trust what they say, especially when it is come one from Matt Cutt
I am really worried about SEO future while reading this, they are going very far to add factors to their algorithm, and many of them are very hard to be influenced by SEOs
What an amazing company google is! It continues to impress me every day. Google dominates the web without annoying too many people. As far as online services go, google is way ahead of Microsoft, yet for the most part, it attacts applaus instead of hostility. Interesting read. Thanks.