Search Engines and Algorithms: Search Engine Algorithms Explored - AOL Search and Google
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AOL Search
AOL claims to be the first major search engine featuring “clustering” technology. Search results will be automatically clustered into relevant topics and displayed alongside the list of general results, using technology licensed by Vivisimo. However, now, 80% of searches done on AOL currently use Google’s databases. For all intents and purposes, optimizing for AOL Search is currently very similar to optimizing for Google. Of the top ten results for “pets” in both AOL Search and Google, there is no distinction of differing results, and for the search term “pet feeding supplies,” there is only one variance. Similar results were achieved for other randomly chosen keywords and phrases. AOL Search queries make up approximately 16% of searches on the web.
Google
Google uses what is commonly known as the Hilltop Algorithm, or the “Austin Update.” Hilltop emphasizes the voting power of what it considers “authority sites.” These are websites or pages that Google assesses to be of strong importance on a particular keyword topic.
For the purpose of quality search results and especially to make search engines resistant against automatically generated web pages based upon the analysis of content specific ranking criteria (doorway pages), the concept of link popularity was developed. Link Popularity weighs very heavily into Google’s PageRank algorithm.
According to WikiPedia.org, “PageRank is a family of algorithms for assigning numerical weightings to hyperlinked documents (or web pages) indexed by a search engine.”
There are over 100 factors that are calculated into Google’s PageRank algorithm. What exact weight is given to each factor is unknown, but we do know that backlinks are probably one of the highest weighed factors when determining relevancy. Some other factors might be: keyword density, date of domain registration or age of the website, clean design, error free pages, text navigation, absence of spam, and more. We aren’t sure if these things are factored into the algorithm, or are just used in filters employed by Google.
Google is probably the most mysterious of all of the top search engines, and is currently the most popular search engine. Google is estimated to have about 35% of the searches made. While currently only ranking at #3, we could easily expect this to change in the near future.
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