The New York Times has an article today about google's ranking algoritm. It mentions two interesting aspects of ranking called classifiers and topicality. I'd like to open a discussion on both of these factors. First, classifiers... What is the impact of classifiers on ranking? How do they work? Is there any practical SEO advise to be gained from this information? Then, topicality... How do you think google determines topicality? How much impact do you think it has on rankings? Is there any practical SEO advice for improving topicality?
topicality could be based on the keyword density or overall topic relation to what the person is searching for. You have a celebrity site and you search for britney spears. That topic is relaetd but if you have a britney spears dedicated site, you might rank higher coz ur topticality is greater than other celebrity sites. This is purely based on topicality, although there are many other indicators which can get you down the rankings.
Really the topicality thing seems like nothing new. A webpage about "President Bush’s speech about Darfur last week at the White House" really isn't going to have the word "White House" a lot, it will have more prevalence of the word "Darfur" by default (as that is the subject) and Bush wouldn't be repeated that many times, as he is the person doing the talking (about the subject). Really it makes sense, it's just adding another phrase for SEO's to show off their vocabulary skills, but it's really nothing new for anyone who has done Debate in High School or College =).