Sunday, July 27, 2014

Google Algorithm: Conflict Within the Ranks?

I'm going to argue that within the beautiful, colourful and airy confines of Google offices worldwide, there are frequent conflicts with regard to the way the infamous Google algorithm is written.  The algorithm is a mathematical formula upon which computers work out which websites are the best and therefore which websites rank the best in a Google search.

The great difficulty is working out what the best website is. You can't just rely upon page rank (PR) which itself relies upon quality inbound links to the website in question, because there are ways and means to get inbound links which do not reflect the fact that the website is good.  Just advertising your website extensively will create more hits and therefore more inbound links. Your site may be as good as the next site but if you are advertising your site more than the next one you'll get more inbound links so if Google ranks a heavily advertised website better than another website which is not promoting itself, it is making a mistake.

Google search results are changing all the time, perhaps on a daily basis.  Real people check out real sites to see whether they are good.  But surely it is highly subjective as to what a good site is? Certainly one criteria is how fast the website loads but this is only one criteria which measures a good site from a bad one.

The most important factor is the content of the site. This is far more important than anything else and the quality of a website's content is going to be based upon a subjective decision by an individual. Of course, it is not entirely subjective but there must be a subjective element within the assessment and it is that which I believe causes conflict and argument within Google.

And you can't tell me that within Google there is not going to be some hidden agendas. Some people might prefer something other people dislike. Some people might wish to promote websites that other people don't wish to promote and vice versa.  Search results on Google are vital to many website's success.

There is bound to be at least argument and I say there is almost certainly going to get some conflict between people about the adjustment required to refine the Google algorithm. You could argue, that the algorithm has not improved over all these years. Constantly tweaking something does not automatically result in an improvement. It is quite easy to make things worse when you constantly adjust because you mess around with the integrity of the algorithm.

It is slightly worrying to website owners knowing that we don't know what is behind changes to Google's algorithm. There's a lot of guesswork and some of it is correct but at the end of the day people are chasing their tails trying to work out how to improve their search results. The next day things change again. The next day people scratch their heads again working out what went wrong and how to beat the system. You can't beat the system.

Like I said, I believe, or it would not surprise me, there is a certain amount of conflict and argument about what the algorithm should churn out in search results. The Google algorithm is the most important aspect of the entire business. There are probably too many people working on it which in itself is more likely to result in conflict. There are too many employees at Google because Google is too rich -- I'm jealous actually ;) . Perhaps the company is no longer lean enough.

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