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SEO News
Google Florida Algorithm
Update
Google has most certainly changed things from a pure algorithmic sense which happen in Novmeber 2003. Reports from various searchers, SEOs, and other people that "live" in Google are reporting that search results are not as accurate, relevant, or dependable as they once were and no one seems to be able to put their finger on why. With previous updates, SEOs and Webmasters often took note of drops in relevancy, but that notice was mostly based on their own sites dropping out of the listings. With this update, many of us have begun to have friends and family ask why they are having trouble finding things at Google. Google does acknowledge that there are changes being made to their algorithms, "For the purposes of making the results better in all cases. As with any core logic change, the results will most certainly not be the exact same with each iteration, but each iteration reflects another step towards the goal of achieving greater relevance of the pure search results."
1. Google is taking a very hands-off approach in addressing these concerns. Attendees of SES in Chicago December 20, have noted that Google is not talking at all about organic search, the Florida update, or anything not related to Adwords or Adsense. Essentially, they're making a marked effort to shift the focus of discussion to their commercial entities.
2. Google is preparing for an IPO. There's bigtime money at stake here. The success of the IPO, and the long term success of Google.com is directly tied to the stability and profitability of AdWords, AdSense, contextual ads, and other ventures such as "Froogle". As important as the financial success of their commercial ventures, the continued success of their organic search is vital in retaining searcher loyalty, industry-wide respect, and as the "engine" that drives their commercial endeavors.
3. The IPO can only happen if Google is a "clean" company. This means they must have nothing derogatory on the financial side, and that they must be a self-contained (proprietary) system, with no outside control over structure, code, systems, personnel, etc. In other words, if they owed a billion dollars to someone, that would have to be cleared first. Similarly, if a major portion of their infrastructure was legally owned by a 3rd party, they would have to assume ownership and control over those systems. And therein just might lie the rub.
4. Patent Number 6,285,999. This is the patent on "Page Rank", a major part of the algorithm that made Google the most dominant search engine in the world. You'll notice a couple of things right off the bat. First, the Patent is granted to Stanford University (which as we all know is where Google has its initial roots). Secondly, as our own Chris Logan pointed out, "This invention was supported in part by the National Science Foundation grant number IRI-9411306-4. The Government has certain rights in the invention." This document nullifies one of the requirements of the IPO (#3 above), as there are 2 outside claims to the Intellectual Property that makes Google what it is (was), and therefore could potentially eliminate their chances of having the IPO at all. Google does acknowledge that Stanford holds the patent, but they made it clear that "although Stanford is the named owner, Google as a company absolutely owns all of the rights contained within." This makes the case that they are under a legal obligation to circumvent the patent a moot point, however the financial obligations may still be an issue. I have spoken with a respected Seattle Patent, Trademark and Intellectual Property attorney about this, and they were able to shed some light on the subject. Legally speaking, both Stanford and the US Government have ownership on the patent. Stanford is the primary, but because the code was developed using a US Grant, the Government retains the right to throw a legal hammer onto the mix if they so choose, as granted by the Bah-Dole Act of 1908: http://www.crf.cornell.edu/bayh-dole.html. The Government has never used the hammer, which exists mainly as a threat, but it is there. Legally speaking, Google can exist outside of the Stanford patent under one of 2 scenarios:
a. If the license that exists between Google and Stanford explicitly permits it.
According to Google, they "Own the rights" to use the patented technology. Based on that statement there must be a license agreement between the two parties, which obviously is not going to be part of the public record. Very often, these types of licenses, especially when a university is involved contain some "poison pills" which make it financially or commercially impossible to use the granted work in commerce. Obviously, we're not privy to their negotiations or the specifics of the contract, but one would assume that there's something significant in there that is making Google "blink".
b. If Google develops around the patent.
This is the assumption that this article is making. Big and obvious algorithmic changes, that extend beyond minor tweaks, are certainly being made. One has to assume that either Google and their users were totally unhappy with the previous results and relevance or that they are attempting to exist beyond the grasp and logic of "Page Rank". Our patent attorney agrees ... this is a perfectly ethical and legal practice, and one that is employed countless times. "If Google can achieve the same quality/relevance of results by an alternate means that does not infringe on the specifics of the existing patent, it is perfectly within their legal rights to do so".
Note that Google can also exist (and IPO) within the confines of the patent, depending on the specific financial and legal obligations that are contained within their license agreement with Stanford. Is there a poison pill in there that's at the root of this discussion?
Take a step back and do some simple addition, folks. With that patent in existence, Google cannot IPO unless ownership of it is either explicitly and fully transferred to them, they cut a deal for profit sharing with Stanford, or until their organic search is rewritten in such a way that Google can exist separately from that patent. (With the patent as is, Stanford stands to claim a large portion of potential earnings.) Is the reason for the shift in algorithms and the apparent irrelevance of Google organic results starting to make sense now? If it is, let me know, because I'm getting more and more confused as I go here ....
Google may have put themselves in a position where they must reinvent the wheel (or at least the part of the wheel that's owned by Stanford) before they can move forward. Logical analysis of the information above makes us wonder if there isn't a very simple conclusion to this puzzle. The organic results at google.com are not changing as the result of a conspiracy to increase adwords revenues, nor is Google showing favoritism to their advertisers. Similarly, they're not "monkeying" with the results to try and screw specific people or specific industries. There's nothing sinister going on. The simple fact is that Google might just need to make lightning strike twice. If that's the case, you can bet your hindquarters that they're investing countless dollars and man-hours on it, as there are countless dollars at stake when this all comes to it's final conclusion.
With things of such magnitude as the worlds largest search engine preparing for the worlds largest and most eagerly awaited IPO, there's probably hundreds of other things going on that are impacting Google's decisions to change the algorithms, to deflect discussion away from organic search, and to go live with what appears to be untested algorithmic changes. Google says, quite emphatically, that they "Test, test, and test again before sending updates live. We certainly can't divulge the process, of course, but each update is run through the many stages of both internal and external testing". That said, it's my belief that the algorithm changes we're seeing are being done for reasons both altruistic as well as financial. I believe that Google strives to provide the most relevant results possible. It's in their best interest from a viability standpoint to continue to do that, obviously. From a financial standpoint, it's my opinion that part of the impetus to change things so drastically is driven in some ways by the Patent/IPO bugaboo. We may be looking at a double edged sword here. The existing patent may be a small hiccup on the way to the big IPO: just a little financial obligation. It may also be something more of a concern either from a technology or financial standpoint that is forcing Google to make some tough decisions. Regardless of the real reason, we have some decisions to make both as searchers and as optimizers.
Rather than invoke theories of conspiracy and cry foul every time your site (or a client site) drops for no explicable reason in Google results, let's do more to work with Google on improving things. As stated earlier, the success of their organic search is directly tied to it's relevance to the searcher and it's reliability for the SEO. If Google wants to continue testing algorithm tweaks in a real-life beta test, let's test with them, and see if as a group we can help them shape Google for the future.
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