Google algo moves away from links, towards traffic patterns

[travisk]

Does anyone else think that Google's actions over the last few years indicate a gradual change in the importance of traffic patterns over inbound links?

Think about it... the Google Toolbar, Google Analytics and click monitoring on the SERPs give Google an incredible picture of where people are going, what pages they stay on, what sites they frequently return to and where they go when they leave.

We know that Google is pushing the toolbar onto consumers. They're paying Dell a billion dollars to install it onto 100 million consumer PC's. Imagine what the behavior patterns of 100 million Internet users could tell Google about a particular site's value.

What scares me is that this will push the blackhats from link spamming over to the busy spyware world. Imagine if I could pay some shady company to have the web browsers of 100,000 pc's randomly click on my #10 ranked link and stay on my site until Google decides that I should be #1. Who cares if these users buy anything on my site. I just want Google to THINK that they're using it. Will Google start bundling anti-spyware with the toolbar to stop this?

Am I on to something, or has this been going on for years?

[edited by: tedster at 8:38 pm (utc) on April 6, 2006]

[jk3210]

Having the Toolbar placed in 100 million consumer PCs would allow Google to determine site popularity in much the same way that the Nielsen Ratings are done. No? And with at least the same level of accuracy.

Nielsen Ratings note [tv.yahoo.com]
"There are an estimated 110.2 million television households in the USA. A single ratings point represents 1%, or 1,102,000 households for the 2005-06 season. Share is the percentage of television sets in use tuned to a specific program."

Billions of $$$ worth of advertising are spent based on that word "share." This Dell deal will allow Google to speak to Madison Avenue suits on the same terms that TV execs currently do.

Additionally, a site's "authority/hub" status could be determined with far greater accuracy than is currently done. In other words, myspace is a social authority/hub site simply because a few billion users say it is. (It sure isn't because of its content)

[Oliver Henniges]

Maybe OT: I reinstalled the toolbar by mid February in order to observe expected changes around this big daddy thing. Ever since then, these little favicon-graphics vanished one by one from my favourites-bar, and adding a new page doesn't create a new favicon. Its IE6. Could be a mere coincidence or a virus, but maybe someone else has noticed something similar.

Whatever it is, it underlines the basic open questions:

- What exactly does the toolbar to the browser?
- Has anyone sniffed in detail what information is sent by the toolbar while surfing?
- If bandwidth and capacity do matter, one of the most valuable information to be sent definitely would be the fact that someone adds a website to his or her favourites.

[bears5122]

Although I think they have probably tested things and possibly look at data to see how they can implement it, I think it is really difficult to believe that they are truly implementing this as a major factor in the algo. This is much easier to manipulate than any link based algorithim.

I think it will eventually play a role in things, but I don't think a company who can't figure out how to handle a 301 has an algorithim based on user behaivor patterns.

[2by4]

Of course google is tracking user behavior, this was transparent over the summer when they were testing some parts of their new systems, they had javascript redirects running constantly. Usually those only run with cookies, but sometimes they turn them on full time just to see what links get clicked.

Since 99.999% of google users have google cookies allowed, they can use the tracking javascript they run off and on to see how users react to various serp combinations, but only in the context of searches, and returns to searches, which means a failed serp result.

Obviously google wants to get out the results that people don't use, that's just common sense, and cookie based click tracking is how they do that.

The toolbar lets them track user behavior much more actively, why anyone installs that toolbar is absolutely beyond me to be honest, especially seos. Same for allowing google cookies when you test serps.

It's not hard to track this stuff, the data is very simple, cookie id + url + search, it's fairly trivial I would guess, session tracking isn't exactly the hardest thing in the world to do, especially with the server resources google has.

The question is not why would google do this, it's why would they not do it? Yahoo and MSN do it, yahoo always tracks with hard coded redirects, no exception, can't remember how msn does it, but they all do it. Google just does it in a more subtle way, they even do custom browser based tracking. As with most stuff in search, google does it better than their competitors.

[dataguy]

why would they not do it?

I am positive they use traffic patterns as part of their ranking algo, but since you asked...

While at the Meet the Engineers in New Orleans I asked several questions about this and was told that Google couldn't use click data directly because of a previous patent, but they were using the data in some other fashion (which he wouldn't explain) and they were working on more ways to use the data.

I don't have the time to look it up, but does anyone know who holds the previous patent?

[2by4]

I would guess that a very careful re-reading of the jagger patent application, which talked about tracking user behavior, will tell you just how they are looking at working around the other patent. And finding the other patent would probably shed a little more light on the jagger stuff.

Clearly google would not have included the tracking component in the patent application if they hadn't felt that they had found a way to work around the patent the engineer refered to.

Good information, this has to be one of the very first times I've gotten a real answer to what was intended as a rhetoricial question here, thanks!

[JudgeJeffries]

lammert you may be onto something.
I've wondered for several years why every now and again I get a 'traffic spike' for a day or so. Never connected it with the possibility of being released from the sandbox for a while.

[bhartzer]

Google gives Dell billion bucks...Google now not only knows what sites a user visits

Uh, I know this is all about Google, but hasn't anyone thought of the amount of data Microsoft has--after all, they happen to have an operating system that's installed on a heck of a lot of PCs. MSN doesn't need a toolbar to collect the data.

Google is definitely collecting data--and with the latest toolbar update they're probably collecting even more data (considering that when you turn on the PR option they give you an additional popup about privacy).

Having the Toolbar placed in 100 million consumer PCs would allow Google to determine site popularity

I think there's other additional ways for them to collect the data, including just watching which sites are visited more via their SERPs. And why has no one mentioned the infamous "google cookie"?

[bigjohnt]

Why would they collect the data without the intent to use it?
With all those datacenters, surely they use some for testing, and probably rotate weighted factors using feedback from the toolbar to test them.

Didn't we used to call this "temporal clicking" as was used by direct hit and hotbot?

An iterative loop based on the users. I call it brilliant, as a check on the foundation they have already engineered. Its a heck of a number crunch, but they have the power to do it. Eventually, it may even be done close to real time.

IMHO, this will not supplant PageRank, or linkpop, but will overlay with the vote of the searching public - who by all means should have important input. Not primarily other sites and webmasters as was the case with previous algos.

Once again, it still comes down to relevance and content. Google will use the searching public to weed out less than stellar sites. (Language ambiguity and inept searches will need to be part of the "fudge" factor. I imagine a huge amount of sites caught in the crossfire on this.)

And once again, commercial sites will have to provide content enough for the information seekers to keep them on the site to avoid triggering "irrelevance" penalties from those not interested in purchasing.

AND ...once again... Brett's concise two words show wisdom and insight.

"Florida update" :)

[JanFer]

1. How many people went to that site
2. How long did people spend on that site (or page)

Without #2, #1 is meaningless.

And I would add at least #3 - How many went back to that site within xx days.

#3 and #2, in my mind, is the most important measure of a website's relevancy.

#1 is a measure of how well it is presently doing in the serps (or how well they are marketing across the internet), which, in many cases, is not a measure of quality/relevance.

If google focused weight on #2 and #3, I can't think of a downside, except for webmasters who spam and scrape - these guys would have to think about actually putting some effort into their sites, beyond SEO.