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Google Search Ranking Secrets Revealed

Wouldn't it be great to understand exactly how Google decides to rank websites? And wouldn't it be even better if the information on Google search rankings came from a true ''insider'' at Google? Well if the Google blog is to be believed, the company has begun an effort to do just that. Udi Manber, a Vice President of Engineering at Google is part of the team called 'Search Quality'. Search Quality is the name of the team responsible for the ranking of Google search results. That is, when you type a search query into the search box at Google and hit enter, the Search Quality team is responsible to decide within a fraction of a second which among the billions of pages on the web to display, and in what order.

So according to this post in the Official Google Blog, the company has decided to share more information with those outside Google about exactly how its search rankings are determined. As anyone who has tried to get a website ranked at Google for any relatively popular term can tell you, the exact process of how Google ranks pages has been intentionally shrouded in mystery since the company was founded. However, in the blog post Mr. Manber declares, ''But being completely secretive isn't ideal, and this blog post is part of a renewed effort to open up a bit more than we have in the past. We will try to periodically tell you about new things, explain old things, give advice, spread news, and engage in conversations. Let me start with some general pieces of information about our group. More blog posts will follow.''

The rest of the piece doesn't reveal anything particularly new about the ranking process.

So why on earth would Google be telling us about how rankings are formulated? And why do it now? What is to be gained?

Perhaps as the company has become nearly monopolistic in search, there is added pressure to assure the outside world that the search results are truly independent of any internal manipulation. It's no secret that a top Google ranking for a highly trafficked term, for instance ''web hosting'', is worth thousands of dollars per day. There is also the prestige and brand equity that comes with a number one ranking at Google.

So how do we know that Google's ranking system is ''fair''?

We don't. For all we know, influential insiders at Google have sent around an internal memo that reads in part, ''When in doubt, just put the Wikipedia entry for the search term at the top of the results...''. Of course that's not what would lead to the most relevant search results, but then again the search industry is completely unregulated. If Google wanted to, they could rank www.thewhir.com as the number one result for ''web hosting''. So why don't they?

Perhaps Mr. Manber's next blog post will shed some light on that subject.

This content appears courtesy of HostMySite.com.


Why the Rackspace IPO is Good for Hosting

As reported here at The WHIR and around the Internet, Rackspace has filed the preliminary paperwork with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission to issue an Initial Public Offer of stock (IPO). The complete S-1 documents can be found here and make pretty interesting reading for anyone who has a business involving web servers or large scale hosting.

Assuming that the IPO is issued, and that Rackspace becomes a New York Stock Exchange traded stock - this is great news for the web hosting industry. Here are the main reasons why:

An IPO at this time indicates that this sector is growing like crazy despite the specter of a U.S. recession - While there has been a pull back in a number of high visibility stock market sectors (think: housing markets, mortgages, banking, consumer durables) there is actually an acceleration in web hosting going on. This is driven by the growing acceptance of the web as the place for any and all data and applications. We are witnessing the transference of data from the desktop to the 'cloud'. Rackspace is riding the crest of this wave and pointing the way for the entire hosting industry.

Rackspace is an almost pure play web hosting company - Anyone, either within the web hosting industry or outside, can now have much greater visibility into the specific metrics that make web hosting a great business. Many investors are reluctant to invest in a sector or industry which is complex or laden with technical jargon. Rackspace will educate the market on many of the terms and realities that accompany web hosting operations. This will benefit other web hosting companies seeking investment in the future.

A successful IPO will create demand among investors for similar companies - Once Rackspace reveals the money to be made in web hosting, the larger investment community will seek out web hosting investments. This will mean more money available for web hosting companies in every niche of hosting. In essence, the business model will be vetted and the mechanisms for profit better understood.

The publicity surrounding the IPO will generate buzz for 'web hosting' - Just by submitting the S-1 documents, Rackspace has already created a substantial buzz around the investment and Internet communities related to web hosting. As of this morning, there are over 111 references to Rackspace on Google news. Over 35 of those posted in the past few hours, and all related to the IPO. Web hosting buzz and publicity enriches all those in this industry.

I wish everyone over a Rackspace the very best of luck with this exciting new venture, and on behalf of the entire web hosting industry I offer a heart-felt, ''Thank You''.

This content provided by HostMySite.com.


Why Yahoo Should Sell

For anyone who doesn't follow Internet news very closely, I'll update you on an interesting web hosting story the is currently playing itself out. Microsoft is trying to buy Yahoo. The thing that is really difficult to understand is this: Yahoo doesn't want to sell.

This is a very important story to the web hosting industry because both of these players are pretty huge in hosting. Microsoft has developed an entire set of software and servers that only run under the Windows paradigm and then licenses that technology to web hosting companies. They have also dappled in hosting accounts directly, first with bCentral, and now with Office Live. Microsoft also practically owns business email software with Outlook and Exchange server. Yahoo on the other hand has stayed mainly in search, although the company made the decision to get into web hosting several years back - and has since been competing against its own advertisers (other web hosting companies that advertise on Yahoo or through Yahoo Search Marketing).

What's so puzzling is this: Yahoo was valued by the Wall Street at a total market cap of $25.7 billion before Microsoft's offer. The offer from Microsoft almost instantly boosted the market cap from $25.7 to $38 billion - an increase to all shareholders of $12.3 billion. So why on earth wouldn't Yahoo sell? Well, according to an open letter to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer reprinted in today's Wall Street Journal, Yahoo thinks that its three year projections are so rosy that Microsoft is undervaluing the company.

Huh?

So let me get this right - all the SUPER smart Wall Street analysts, hedge fund managers, mutual fund managers, and smaller investors were totally miscalculating the value of Yahoo before the offer? And now Microsoft - even though they are willing to pay a $12 billion premium over the market price - are STILL undervaluing the company?

No way.

If the growth plans of Yahoo are so great, shouldn't they be buying back their stock at what is effectively a BIG bargain? Shouldn't all those really smart Wall Street investors be buying it up as well?

The truth - though it hurts for Yahoo to hear it is this - they should immediately make a deal with Microsoft. If Yahoo is so certain that they are going to make a TON more money in the next three years, then they should make a deal that includes lots of Microsoft stock. That way, when the Yahoo piece of Microsoft outperforms, Microsoft stock will go up.

If this deal does get done, it will be interesting to see what Microsoft decides to do with the current Yahoo web hosting customers. It will also be interesting to see if Microsoft and Yahoo together can accomplish what they haven't been able to do separately: offer an impactful pay per click advertising alternative to Google for web hosting companies trying to attract new accounts.

This content provided by HostMySite.com.


Why Doesn't Google Rank Me Higher?

Why doesn’t Google rank me higher? Well, not me exactly. A website that I work on. I set up a site for a friend of mine and helped get it groomed to rank well for its search terms in Google.

Here are the basics that my friend and I have going for the site right now.

* It has been online for over 5 years at the same URL.

* The URL is a .com and has some of the keywords in it.

* The title tag has the keywords in it.

* The home page has the correct keyword density and keywords on it.

* Over the years we have been fortunate to get great links back – many with the exact keywords in the link.

So here is what is so frustrating to me:

2 days ago we ranked pretty well for one of our key search terms at Google (top 10 Google ranking). Today I checked, and we have dropped to page 5 for the same term. I could understand if we just didn’t fit the Google algorithm or criteria for the term and we hadn’t reached beyond page 5 yet. But how in the world does it make any sense whatsoever that we rank on page 1 two days ago and page 5 now? This term is simply not that competitive. Here is what I am thinking about regarding this ranking:

Theory #1: Google randomly “bounces sites around” in the rankings once in a while to introduce confusion into the optimization process, thereby discouraging “gaming”. This fits the circumstances, but it would yield poor search results and potentially randomly rank top sites poorly. This doesn’t fit the “relevancy” standard that Google surely has.

Theory #2: The site is being penalized for aggressive optimization techniques. This doesn’t make any sense to me either, as we haven’t done anything at all unusual for this particular website or search term. As I stated, it isn’t that competitive – so we began to rank well for it quite naturally. This was even before we groomed our site content and title tags (as I noted, the keywords are in the domain name).

Theory #3: All of a sudden, the landscape for this search term changed dramatically – with new players entering the rankings and pushing the legacy websites further down the list. Okay, no way. This term is not that competitive. Plus, there aren’t any really new players on the scene for this term.

Theory #4: A very authoritative website that was linking back to us dropped our link, or changed how they linked to us. I guess this could be the case. But we haven’t bought or even traded or asked for links back to this term. Also – I’m not sure that even if a site like that was linking back to us, would just one site, or one link matter that much to drop us like a rock in a couple of days?

Theory #5: Google changed something in how they calculate the rankings for this term in the last 2 days – while everything we offered on the site and all our inbound links remained the same. This is the only explanation I can think of that fits both the circumstances and common sense. We simply haven’t changed anything in the past 2 days. So I think that Google (or more correctly the Google algorithm) has changed somehow for this term – yielding lower search rankings for our site. Some sources are reporting that Google uses over 150 different pieces of data to rank, so even a minor tweak in one or two of these for our category / search term could have pushed us lower.

Whatever the exact reason that we have dropped in the search rankings - I just keep wondering, why doesn’t Google rank me higher?

If you have any ideas, I’d love to see them in the comments below.

This content provided by HostMySite.com.

 
 

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