neuron - 7:53 am on Apr 17, 2005 (gmt 0)

57. The method of claim 54, wherein the linkage data includes a rank based, at least in part, on links and anchor text provided by one or more linking documents and related to the linked document.

Apparently, 62 and 63 are talking about one of two type documents, a "linking document" and a "linked document", but it did take a bit of searching to clarify that issue.

>>62. The method of claim 61, wherein the indication of link churn is computed as a function of an extent to which one or more links provided by the linking document change over time.

indication here is the change over time of the linking document itself, but "indication" could mean something such as "numerator" or "single factor or function".

>>63. The method of claim 62, wherein adjusting the ranking includes penalizing the ranking if the link churn is above a threshold.

The indication of 62 is then compared to the "threshold" of 63, but I do not see from where the threshold is calculated, it could be just this site's link churn threshold, it could be some type of semantic/topological/industry-specific threshold, it could be an overall threshold of all indexed documents, or it could even be one based on traffic, PR, or perhaps other factors; which makes the whole thing a mixed cauldron of complexity, though nonetheless, with its array of definitions, derivations, and indications of direction of change or adjustment of rankings, somewhat decypherable in that it would seem we could list all these things and along with positive and negative indications on rankings and come up with a list of pros and cons so that we will have a handy document/checklist by which comparisons could be made to specific pages and which might be useful to score our own pages, at least in a quasi-consistent manner relative to this patent application in particular.

I have believed for a long time that updating content on a site will give it a boost. This document contains specific reference to such in >>60. An analysis of this document is in order.