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My guess is that Google's algorithms have become too complex and rely heavily on pattern and number of links. This slows them down. On top of it, not only have the number of web pages increased significantly, people have started link rings, link farms etc., which just overburdens Google.
My uneducated guess is that Google has to change its algorithms and reduce the significance of PRs, if not eliminate, if it wants to succeed in the new battleground.
Just my $0.02.
has to change its algorithms and reduce the significance of PRs
As long as Google's convinced that PageRank and the current algorithms bring the most relevant search results, that's not going to happen just to shorten the period between indexes. And it wouldn't have to. A crawl and update now take a little more than a week. With no changes they could go to a bi-weekly update schedule.
I'd assume the time in between is generally spent evaluating the results and tinkering with algorithm changes.
The more Google gains market share the more people are interested to it, with the fatal consenquences to soon follow. Google will be a victim of it's own success, and get spammed into oblivion, if they dont refine external factors.
I guess they could hire a few more PHDs here and there to finally get "Theming" on the right track...
I believe it is Google that has now defined the new battleground and they are the ones people are trying to defeat.
If ain't broke, don't fix it!
Just my .02
Yes, very true, problem is, everyone knows that by now...
I'd assume the time in between is generally spent evaluating the results and tinkering with algorithm changes.
There is a huge amount of processing that goes into building the index that gets searched. The step that you do not see, between the crawl and the dance is the building of the *index* that is searched. Google does not search all 3 billion pages each time someone enters a search.
PR also leads to getting irrelevent results and IMHO Google's results are looking a lot like AV's did when they started their decline a few years ago.
For many searches sites with high PR and low or no relevence fill the serps after the first 5 or so results.
Having said that, Google has probably reached a high-water mark in terms of market share, simply because there's no place left to expand.
I disagree. You could have a website that updates on a daily basis, but if your pagerank is 3 or less then you will be lucky if freshbot visits your site once a month. Google is forcing you to get links. What other search engine does this?
badgeruk
The factors that make up PR are modified often. The factors that create SERPs are modified and tweaked often. The best thing Google can do is to keep doing what it's doing.
The step that you do not see, between the crawl and the dance is the building of the *index* that is searched.
Sure, that takes some time. But how much time? I don't know, but do we know that it's, say, three weeks -- so it prevents them from doing an update more than once a month?
Regarding some of the topic drift here, whether Google may need to make changes to PageRank or algorithms to maintain or increase the quality of their serps or to address spamming is a different topic than that brought up here, which was that they'd need to reduce complexity and decrease reliance on links because those things "slow them down."
I agree. PR is a great concept, but Google should have kept the details secret. The more SEOs understand the interworkings of PR, the more successful they become at gaming the system. Google should lose the toolbar.
