101 Articles Search Algorithm Reverse Engineering
SEARCH ALGORITHM REVERSE ENGINEERING
This is an interesting topic as the name suggests. Search engines have evolved from Meta search engines to giants like Google. The 1st search engines did not even have the ability to crawl and index a page. They only index pages / sites that were submitted to them. Then came the Meta search engines which were capable of crawling and indexing only Meta tags. Now we have Google the most sophisticated and advanced search engine. Google brings in over 500 changes to their algorithm every year. This is right from Google's mouth. As the changes come out there are a group of algorithm hunters who try to decode the search engine's core algorithm to get high rankings in a short period of time.
I have personally seen mathematicians, scientists, senior professors in computer science from leading universities, PhDs all trying to figure out the algorithm behind the search engines. When the PageRank algorithm came out people decoded it and started abusing the core value of the algorithm. In forums there were huge debates on a particular formula explained in a patent document. Usually Patent documents submitted to USPTO office are on public domain. Some scientists try to understand the stuff explained in Google patent. I have known people who have read literally all the patents given to Google and its principle engineers. These people try to see which ones are used by the search engines and manipulate their sites or client sites to gain high rankings. This page has a comprehensive but partial list of patents awarded to Google.
It's not the freelance scientists or researchers who try to decode the algorithm. Some people who drop out of job from companies like Google or Yahoo join other companies and use their expertise and knowledge gained in these companies to start new search engines or tries to reuse the algorithm used in their previous search companies for their new search engines. Even though this is breach of trust, we know it is happening. That is one reason search engines like Google keep updating their algorithm to make the life of Algo hunters difficult.
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Marissa Mayer who worked for Google from the day it started, left the company to join Yahoo as the CEO. Though she might not have used the expertise from Google still this shows how big companies like Google can be vulnerable.
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The above mentioned image shows decoding of the Panda update using the SEO periodic table and what it means to the future of search engine and spammers.
Few open source google patents that includes sample source codeApplication 20080282151 – DOCUMENT SEGMENTATION BASED ON VISUAL GAPS
Filed: 2008-07-22
Assignee: Google Inc.Application 20080276272 – Animated Video Overlays
Filed: 2008-04-28
Assignee: Google Inc.Application 20080270364 – EXPANSION RULE EVALUATION
Filed: 2008-04-22
Assignee: GOOGLE INC.Application 20080103879 – USER-SPECIFIED ONLINE ADVERTISING
Filed: 2007-10-25
Assignee: GOOGLE INC.Application 20080097986 – Generic Online Ranking System and Method Suitable for Syndication
Filed: 2007-10-18
Assignee: GOOGLE INC.
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