GOOGLE Introduces “TrustRank” Patent # 7,096,214

Google was recently awarded what we might call the "TrustRank Patent", (August 22, 2006) US patent # 7,096,214, entitled; “System and method for supporting editorial opinion in the ranking of search results”.

The SEO world has rushed news articles to press on GOOGLE’s newest patent without all the facts. Most of the initial articles don’t mention the history, have no idea of the research done, papers published on the topic or what the researchers named the system described in the patent.

The patent was applied for on December 13, 2000. At that time or shortly after, a group of researchers from Stanford University and Yahoo started testing the theories outlined in the patent application. Citing the sources, Google must have been involved in sanctioning the research.

Four years later they published their results in a paper entitled: “Combating Web Spam With TrustRank”.

We all know that “PageRank” (aka “PigeonRank) is fully grown and has for the most part outlived it purpose, without additional support. I don’t think any of us can deny that, by any account. The paper fully describes the basis of a system designed to augment “PageRank”, which they named “TrustRank”.

Let’s review the paper’s “Abstract”:

Abstract from “Combating Web Spam with TrustRank” (2004)

“Web spam pages use various techniques to achieve higher-than-deserved rankings in a search engine’s results. While human experts can identify spam, it is too expensive to manually evaluate a large number of pages. Instead, we propose techniques to semi-automatically separate reputable, good pages from spam. We first select a small set of seed pages to be evaluated by an expert. Once we manually identify the reputable seed pages, we use the link structure of the web to discover other pages that are likely to be good. In this paper we discuss possible ways to implement the seed selection and the discovery of good pages. We present results of experiments run on the World Wide Web indexed by AltaVista and evaluate the performance of our techniques. Our results show that we can effectively filter out spam from a significant fraction of the web, based on a good seed set of less than 200 sites.”

The Move To Human Edited Algorithm "Seeding"

Both the research paper and the patent describe the “TrustRank” system as being dependent on human editorial seeding for ranking webpages and how it works in theory and practice. Coming later, the paper describes the system in much more detail.

Obviously, the term “editorial opinion” implies a human editing factor. All Internet Sites and pages therein cannot possibly be human edited. The most prestigious attempt; DMOZ (Open Directory Project) has been dwarfed in their attempt at seeding search results at the hand of human editors.

PageRank algs along with the algorithms of all leading SEs (Search Engines) frequently fall woefully short of searcher’s expectations. DMOZ is light-years behind in the review process and many DMOZ editors have thrown up their hands and moved on from suggested sites in search for relevancy on their own, probably due to overwhelming spammy submissions in queue.

GOOGLE, foreseeing the inevitable…The question then became; “How do you “semi-automate” or “seed” search results with a human “editorial factor” conveying a true relevancy factor throughout search results?”

The "Conclusion" from; “Combating Web Spam with TrustRank” (2004):

“As the web grows in size and value, search engines play an increasingly critical role, allowing users to find information of interest. However, today’s search engines are seriously threatened by malicious web spam that attempts to subvert the unbiased searching and ranking services provided by the engines. Search engines are today combating web spam with a variety of ad hoc, often proprietary techniques. We believe that our work is a first attempt at formalizing the problem and at introducing a comprehensive solution to assist in the detection of web spam. Our experimental results show that we can effectively identify a significant number of strongly reputable (non-spam) pages. In a search engine, TrustRank can be used either separately to filter the index, or in combination with PageRank and other metrics to rank search results.

We believe that there are still a number of interesting experiments that need to be carried out. For instance, it would be desirable to further explore the interplay between dampening and splitting for trust propagation. In addition, there are a number of ways to refine our methods. For example, instead of selecting the entire seed set at once, one could think of an iterative process: after the oracle has evaluated some pages, we could reconsider what pages it should evaluate next, based on the previous outcome. Such issues are a challenge for future research.”

Here are the corresponding first four claims in GOOGLE Patent 7,096,214:

"1. A method, implemented by a computer device, for providing search results, comprising: receiving a search query; retrieving one or more objects in response to the search query; automatically determining whether the search query corresponds to at least one query theme of a group of query themes; determining whether any of the one or more objects relates to a list of favored or non-favored sources; ranking the one or more objects based on a result of the determination of whether the search query corresponds to at least one query theme and the determination whether any of the one or more objects relates to the list of favored or non-favored sources; and providing the ranked one or more objects to a client.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the objects include web pages.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the ranking includes: determining a score for those objects that are unrelated to the list of favored or non-favored sources using a first group of parameters, determining a score for those objects that relate to the list of favored or non-favored sources using the first group of parameters and an editorial opinion parameter, and ranking the objects based on the determined scores.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the editorial opinion parameter causes the rank of those objects corresponding to favored sources to be increased and a rank of those objects corresponding to non-favored sources to be decreased.”

The SEO world should consider these observations and conclusions:

1. GOOGLE SERP have always been dependent on human editing to some extent
2. GOOGLE anticipated 6 years ago that a human edited directory wasn’t going to be sufficient in the future for relevancy "seeding".
3. GOOGLE knew that the “PageRank” system based largely on popular voting or linking wouldn’t stand the test of time by itself as far back as 6 years ago.
4. “TrustRank” has been being “quietly” implemented through several “alg changes” starting back maybe as early as the “Florida” update on December 3, 2003.
5. Subsequent updates including “Jagger” involved new “TrustRank” implementation layering including ranking of IBLs and OBLs (inbound and outbound links) as described in both publications.

There are a host of other associated observations that practicing SEOs might consider in light of the fact that “TrustRank” has become public knowledge. Chief of which, may be: Has the e-Coroner just pronounced DMOZ dead?

It is a good idea to read, discuss and understand the intra-workings of "TrustRank" and reform our SEO concepts. Suddenly there is public validation that many SEO concepts, practices, services and websites are outdated.

It’s kind of a shame that the system described in both publications wasn’t named; “TrustRank” until well after the patent application was made. It is also nice to place some of the credit where credit is due, with the system’s researchers and authors, since they couldn’t be named on the patent.

Ken Webster

Mountain Eagle Marketing

Author Bio:

Ken Webster

Ken Webster is a published, award winning technical author, US Patent Holder and Moderator on a leading Internet Webmaster Forum. His experience as Engineering Manager led him into the Marketing Arena, where he co-founded Mountain Eagle Marketing in 2000. Here at MEM we specialize in promoting companies and professionals engaged in; heavy industry, manufacturing, energy and engineering.