Site update frequency may affect PageRank

Google's patent submission shows PR based on data history

[Josefu]

It seems that it's not only what's in your site that gives it page rank, but how often you put it there. Updating your site often just to improve PR? This is yet another hurdle for spam sites to jump before making it inter the SERP's it seems... link to the story:

[wwwcoder.com...]

...this announcement got Slashdot attention so things may be busy there for a while - hell, it'll be busy from here as well : )

Personally I'm not so so for this move - rather, I have reservations. All the good info sites out there (historical data, encyclopedias, dictionaries, collections, etc) are often at once the most relevent (if the info they contain is what I'm looking for) and the least updated.

But perhaps I should wait for confirmation before coming to any conclusions. It looks pretty serious for now.

[chinohill]

Google-followers beware. Avoid jump to any conclusions. Google patent might means a lot, or, it doesn't mean much. Or, even so, Google use this patent to "trick" webmasters to do or not to do what they want. Google of of course know once they filed a patent, it's public knowledge.

So, don't rush to do all the "tricks" as "implied" by the patent. It could be a "booty trap".

Stick to the good ole white hat SEO methods for the time being.

[phpdude]

It is funny how every one is now an expert at cracking the Google code because they read a patent or two.

The idea of updating your pages often for a better ranking is old news and as far as I can remember started about the time when freshbot appeared on the scene for the first time if not earlier.

[Josefu]

Lord I'd even forgotten that I left this post here...

Yes, one must beware of jumping to conclusions on any Patent submission info - they may be a good sign of intent more than anything else.

[doc_z]

The update frequency doesn't affect PageRank even if page rank depends on the update frequency.

[annej]

Since I have a mostly evergreen site that's been around since 1996 this is most interesting. I wonder if they have the capability to implement it yet.

It just doesn't make sense to go back and change articles on widget history just to make Google think my page is worth reading. I'm constantly added to the site as a whole but not changing individual pages. But this information implies it's done at the page level.

This may explain my slight drop in PR though. If old stagnant sites are mostly what have linked to me that might be hurting.

[WA_Smith]

I've been suppling the HTTP last modified content to dynamic content. I've not had any direct PR increase but i believe i have been crawled deeper. Googlebot does make requests to determine if the page has been updated, I've noticed an increase depth of crawl based on telling Googlebot the page in question was not updated -- the result was googlebot checks another URL on my site. It seems to be picking up more of my pages this way, and i do indeed link to my home page from all sub pages.

Note: MSN ignores the last modified date ... does not crawl differently.