Demystifying Google's New Patent
Author: Michael Goldstein, Esq.

On August 22, 2006, Google's latest patent (#7096214) was
approved. This patent is extremely interesting in light of the
recent excitement surrounding social search. The patent if
broken down into its most simplistic form states, Google is
going to take their existing algorithm and temper it with
shared book marking sites and other trust networks.

The Patent itself is called, "System and method for supporting
editorial opinion in the ranking of search results". What does
this all mean? If your web site has gained and lost significant
ranking over the past month, it is very likely due to your
inclusion or not in trust networks, such as links from
www.myspace.com, http://del.icio.us, Google Co-op and others.
Though the patent does not go into detail on which sites are
trusted sites and which are not, it is likely that the trusted
sites are the ones that are being talked about heavily with in
the social networking arena.

It is also important to note, that just having a patent
approved does not necessarily mean that you must use the
patent. Filing for a patent further does not mean that you have
disclosed everything there is to know an invention. For example,
it is common practice to withhold all trade secrets from any
patent application, because a patent becomes public knowledge
and anyone can read it.

Prior to filing the aforementioned patent application, Google
used a computer generated algorithm which did not take human
editorial comments or votes into its ranking, with the
exception of links from relevant web sites. The new patent,
takes the search results that would appear previously, and then
checks to see if any of the sites in the results "relate to a
list of favored or non-favored sources", or whether any of the
web sites correspond to at least one major category of favored
web sites.

The patent makes reference to a plethora of claims. However, a
select few claims express very telling statements. In claim #3,
Google speaks to how it will determine a score of a web site
that is not linked to on either favored or non-favored sites
using a primary set of logical parameters (the general
algorithm). The claim goes on further to state Google will
determine a score for web sites that are referenced by Google's
list of favored or non-favored sites, using that same set of
parameters and then takes into account an editorial option, and
ranking the final search results based on the score. This seems
to implicate that a web site which is listed on a favored site,
and has solid editorial opinions will rank higher than a site
which is not referenced by the favored or non-favored sites,
even if it is still keyword dense, has great titles and all
other factors that has been used in the past to rank a site.

In the next few claims the patent backs up claim #3, by stating
the editorial opinions cause the rank of those web sites, Flash
movies, images etc. that correspond to favored sites to be
increased while those corresponding to non-favored sites will
be decreased. Claim #10 goes on to restate how Google will
score a web site based on its relationship to a favored or non
favored web site and if so, that the ranking will be further
fine tuned by an editorial opinion of those favored sites.

The statements about these favored and non-favored sites as
well as editorial opinions leads one to believe that Google is
simply referring to good and bad neighborhoods, which have been
used in the past. The editorial opinions leads one to believe
Google is looking for specific positive or negative content on
shared book marking sites and human reviewed directory sites
such as Myspace. Myspace is especially high on this attorney's
list of sites Google may be relying on based on their recent
acquisition of ad space on myspace.com.

What is the reasoning behind this new patent of Google? There
must be a way to fine tune the results of general searches. For
example, a search for printers will come up with thousands if
not millions of results. Why not utilize the experience of web
users, and enhance the ranking of search results by integration
editorial opinions into the scoring of web sites, then applying
the score of an overall web site to each individual page, which
will be relevant to a keyword search.

It appears as if Google has made huge strides in exploiting the
social networking craze that is sweeping the SEO world. Yahoo
has already done so, with their local search, Yahoo Answers,
Flickr, Trip Planner and other programs, but Google is the one
who has come out and actually documented what they are doing
and provided search engine marketers a manual of sorts to
better optimize their client's web sites for the most popular
search engine on the planet.


About The Author: The above entry was written by Michael
Goldstein, Esq. of Goldstein and Clegg, LLC. A
http://www.goldsteinandclegglaw.com/ Massachusetts trademark
law firm Disclaimer: Attorney Goldstein is not a member of the
United States Patent Bar, and his opinions should not be taken
as legal advice in any shape, mean or manor, nor should his
opinion be legally relied upon.