One major change that will occur during Web 3.0 will be a shift in how items are ranked in search engines. Traditionally search engines have ranked websites based on one easily manipulated factor - links. While links will remain an important part of search algorithms - an existing part of the equation will be become the next hot SEO subject thanks to advances in language parsing technology - content.

In about 2-5 years we will begin to see search algorithms switch from focusing mainly on links to focusing on the content itself. Is it stolen? Is it well written? Is it credible? Does the subject of the content match the title? Is it focused content or does it touch on a number of different subjects? Those questions will soon play a much more important role in how data is ranked.

Now you might be thinking, “well isn’t content already important?”. It is, but I do not think it has been given enough respect due to a lack of good language parsing technology. Nowadays you can post a blank page with the word “monkey” written on it with a trillion links pointing to it the content could very well be given top positions despite the fact the content is… well… lame. Slowly but surely companies like Google are taking strides to prevent that from happening anymore.

While the number of links will always play an important role in deciding how credible and accurate content is - it shouldn’t be the end all be all solution - which is what it is these days. Links should only be part of the algorithm and there should be a limit that controls how much influence they can have.

In addition to the content itself, search engines will soon become much smarter. Soon the search engines will basically “know” you. This aspect of search will be there to keep unwanted content from being returned. If you don’t want adult sites, block ‘em. If a specific site or blog keeps giving you bad results, let the search engine know and you’ll never have to see it again. Looking for a good Italian restaurant in your area? Just type in “Italian restaurant” and boom - it’ll pop up with links leading to maps, reviews, and menus for various Italian restaurants in your area (Ask.com does something similar now - but it can be improved greatly). Do you only click on certain URLs while searching for code examples? The search engine will know to give those URLs more priority when you search.

Oh, and if you’re concerned about your privacy don’t worry. I have a feeling in a few more years Google and the other major search providers will be slapped with some nice lawsuits and will be forced to tell users what information they collect, as well as give an opt-out option for not allowing the search engines to collect the info in the first place. A few smaller search engines are already doing that - the big guys will soon be forced to do the same. Be patient, it’ll happen.

Even if my predictions above are completely wrong, at least I do know one thing’s for sure - if humanity isn’t dead on December 21, 2012 as the Mayan’s predicted the next few years will be yet another amazing period of innovation in technology. Unfortunately, even with those great advances there will still be some information unavailable - such as the answer to life, the universe, and everything. If only Google knew the correct answer…

What do you think? Do I have some good ideas or am I completely wrong? What do you think search will be like in 10 years? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

Jonathan Bailey posted an insightful article the other day on his blog, Plagiarism Today, about why blog search services have failed. In the post he raises an interesting point about Google. While Google has done an OK job at handling splogs in their regular search engine, their blog search is pretty bad at filtering them (assuming blog search even finds the splogs, it seems to have a hard time finding blogs at all).

At first I thought part of the reason could have been due to a lack of spam reporting for the blog search, but after a brief discussion Jonathan found out that their normal spam report form is for both their blog search and their regular search engine (supposedly).

So the question still remains, why does it give splogs good rankings?

I don’t know the full answer, but I do think a good chunk of the reason has to do with the blog search algorithm. Unlike normal search, the blog search algorithm relies heavily upon when something was posted, instead of how important the posted content is. The number of links going to an individual post, the pagerank of the blog, and similar factors that are important in the normal search arena have very little to do with where content appears in the blog search. New content goes on top, old content goes on the bottom.

While factors like the number of links can have a slight effect on a post’s ranking, it won’t make a post so “important” that it gets the #1 position for a year (like with regular search). So unless a blog is considered a spam blog by the algorithm, a good chunk of the posts will briefly be given decent ranks.

In addition, I get the feeling Google Blog search is a more of a hobby for Google and isn’t a serious product. When it first came out it caused a bit of buzz, but since then it hasn’t really changed at all. Call me crazy, but I wouldn’t be too surprised to see it get dropped at some point in the next couple of years. If it doesn’t get dropped it’ll at least end up under the “even more” section of Google along with their other miserable failures (errr… “less accepted” products).

One of the most hotly debated topics in the past year is about whether or not “reputation defenders” are damaging the free Internet. These companies make money by charging consumers a fee (usually hundreds of dollars) to remove defaming and reputation-damaging information. I am not sure about all of them, but I know the ones I have dealt with either directly or indirectly have used some fairly fishy techniques to remove information.

Takedown Notices

Back in May of 2006 an online friend of mine asked me about a notice he received. It was a fairly well written takedown notice that demanded him to remove a comment about a company he posted on his website. I checked his post and there was nothing even remotely defaming in it, yet the notice claimed there was.

Because he ignored it they claimed they contacted his web host, but apparently they didn’t do anything either. The use of takedown notices to remove anything other than illegal content is incredibly illegal (they are, after all, legal notices!) and quite frankly the use of it in this situation made me feel sick.

Harassing E-Mails About E-Mail Content

When I first started blogging I received an interesting e-mail from one of those “reputation defenders” who claimed I posted defaming content about one of their clients. I asked them for a link to the source, and they sent me an e-mail I sent to the person (just that person) in which I said, “Sorry, I just checked your site and it doesn’t look like something I’d want to link to”. Apparently that is just horribly defamatory and caused the guy/girl/it to have horrible nightmares. Well… too bad… it was a spam site and I didn’t want to link to it.

I replied, “You do know there’s nothing bad about that e-mail, right?” The fool who worked for the reputation defender then said he was going to sue me for calling him a liar. My reply to that was blunt, “try it, that way I can record you getting laughed out of the court room”. Haven’t heard back from him since then (Yeah Bill, I’m still waiting for the summons, where is it?).

Blackhat SEO

While I have not personally done an investigation into this, from what I have heard “reputation defenders” do some pretty nasty blackhat SEO to get their client’s sites to the top, while attempting to get the supposedly reputation-killing content either removed from or pushed down in the search results. Based on my experience with those companies, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if it were true.

Conclusion

Those are just a few quick stories about my experience in dealing with “reputation defenders” both directly and indirectly. There’s many more I could share, but unfortunately that would make this post ten times longer than it already is.

While I do think the concept of those companies is good and honorable (if content is horribly defamatory it should get removed!), I do think for the most part they don’t care about their clients, they simply want to make a quick buck, and they are willing to lie and intimidate to get it. I think the problem is there are sick people out there who hire these companies with a malicious intent. They don’t want bad information removed, they just want to silence their critics, which is about a stupid as you can get. As long as those people exist malicious companies will also exist.

Have you ever dealt with companies who claim to be reputation defenders? If so, which side were you on and how did it go?

Ever since the Google PR here popped up a point I’ve gotten a couple of really pitiful link exchange requests. I’m going to share them here, just so you can see how NOT to ask for a link:

We are very interested in forming 3 way link exchange with other real estate related websites.

If you are interested, simply click the following link: http://www.realtydirectorymakers.com/register and you simply put in your information, and you will receive an email immediately with our information as well. Your site will place a link from a PR 4 national real estate company.

By doing this, we both will have a 1 way link from a real estate related company which will greatly enhance both our rankings.

Looking forward to a new business relationship.

Andrew

Oh Really? Nusuni Dot Com is a real estate site? They must know something I don’t.

hello!

i will pay you something around $35 bucks to place a text ad (few sentences) on your webpage:

http://www.nusuni.com/blog/2007/02/08/angry-emailing-why-it-is-sometimes-best-to-shut-up/

i picked this page because it has the word “email” is in the title tag. the text ad would be for an email hosting website… i think it’s a good match….what do you think?

i can send you the ad to look over and i can pay you via paypal….just lemme know if you’re interested!

thx,
sarah raymond

Hello!

Nope, keep your $35 please.

If you want a link on here do me a favor and keep it short and don’t hype it up. One link isn’t going to all of this sudden make my already somewhat-decent rankings skyrocket up into ProBlogger territory. Ah yes, and don’t use poorly written software that detects keywords to send out mass e-mails.

And people wonder why Digg users hate SEOs with a passion. Personally I’m beginning to feel the same about most of them.

Many of the blogs that had mega drops in PR appear to be getting back their PageRank once more. Nusuni.com is now supposedly a PR 4 - as reported by a multi-datacenter check. So, is the update over?

Here’s some more blogs that seem to be going back to normal for the most part (still very iffy - the datacenters don’t agree with each other):

Macbros Place - PR 4
Green Llama - PR 3
ProBlogger - PR 6
BlogStorm - PR 4
Andy Beard - PR 5

And the list goes on and on. Hopefully the update is nearly done.

By the way, if you’re wondering why I left this PR update out of my little Google rant - this is why. I didn’t want to look like an idiot if everything went back to normal. There is always a method to my madness.

I still stand by what I said though - Google search really is pretty bad and they’ve got to deal with spammers (and they really do need to be bitch slapped for the way they handle Adsense DMCA takedowns). For the time being I’m using Yahoo and Ask.com more and more - they seem to get me better results.