With its typical flare
for new and continual innovation and improvisation, Google introduced a major
improvement in its search algorithm to provide its loyal users more up to date
and relevant results. Page rank which will get impacted was named after Google’s
co-founder Larry Page works by counting the number and quality of links to a
page to determine a rough estimate of how important the website is.

Just to set the context,
Google’s engineers have been making around 500 changes to its search algorithm
every year. That makes it roughly more than one per day.
The primary intent as I understand is to retain the market leadership in the
area of Search Engines by giving users better and latest results. Btw, Yahoo
Search Engine commands meager 3.93 % of the global search engine market with
Microsoft Corp’s Bing marginally ahead with 4.37%.

It is said that this change will affect around 35% of searches, where it
was specially designed to target queries about recurring events, recent
activity in the news as well as frequent updates. Though, it will not impact
most of the static websites, however the websites/ blogs with continual
addition/ modification of content and new information will be impacted with
introduction of new algorithm by Google.

Just fyi, an algorithm
is a set of mathematical steps that solves a problem so in this case it solves
your search query and gives the search result as an output of the algorithm.
For example, when you search for information on a legend, someone who is
historic in nature and the information available about him would not change in
all probabilities, Google search will not impact the search results or the page
rank. Let’s take an example of “Alexander the Great”. Please see the snapshot
below. The information provided is in the order of

1. Alexander the Great : Personality (No change in the information available unless some
   archeologist or historian dig out something radical)
2. Movie trailer on YouTube : Alexander the Great
3. Various sites with keyword “Alexander” such as Alexander Wang, Alexander Trailer 2,
   Complete guide to Alexander technique , so on and so forth

However, in the case of recurring events wherein the new algorithm by
Google will play a decisive role in events, there could be a substantial impact
on Page Rank. A recurring event could be an event happening on a periodic basis
such as Olympics, Beauty Contests, Conferences and Seminars or anything else
that is exposed to regular or continual inflow of new data. For example, let’s
take “Ponds Femina Miss India” which is an annual event. You can see the search
being modified to suggest the page rank in such a fashion that you get the most
relevant information rather the latest information.

Amit Singhal, a Google Fellow, and head of Google’s core ranking team,
on the company’s official blogpost said that “Given the incredibly fast pace at which
information moves in today’s world, the most recent information can be from the
last week, day or even minute, and depending on the search terms, the algorithm
needs to be able to figure out if a result from a week ago about a TV show is
recent, or if a result from a week ago about breaking news is too old.”

And that “If I search for [Olympics], I probably want information about
next summer’s upcoming Olympics, not the 1900 Summer Olympics.” This “freshness
algorithm” should make sure that results on Summer 2012 Olympics will end up on
top instead of previous exploits.

And that precisely seems to be the essence of this new algorithm.

Now, to understand better, let’s reflect upon the areas where the search
results or the page rack will see major changes. The three major areas wherein
the search result will get impacted are;

Recency: When a user searches with a set of keywords, he will see the pages
with latest information on the top.

Recurrence: Some events take place on a regularly recurring basis, such as annual
conferences like [FICCI] or an event
like the election. Without specifying with your keywords, it’s implied that you
expect to see the most recent event, and not one from 20 years ago.

Frequency: There is always a demand for information that changes continuously
such as information about electronic gadgetry (Cell phones, laptps etc). So if
you are searching for Laptops, the new algorithm will ensure that Page Rank is
such that you get the most up-to-date information on the laptops.

In nutshell, this new
tweak will make much sense and will be useful for users, however will keep the
website owners/ bloggers at their edge to retain their page ranking. Typical free
market competition guys…