Search Algorithms & The NFL Draft

With the NFL draft just around the corner, it provides a good opportunity for me to draw a strong analogy to the link building, and the authority given to a unique page by search engines, such as Google, that ultimately determines the ranking position in the search results.

Quarterbacks hold an authoritative position on any football team. In fact, the entire team, including coaches, look to the quarterback to lead them down the field for a touchdown. And when it comes to the NFL draft, you better believe that teams take a good hard look at each quarterback prospect before determining which one is worthy of being picked as the best.

Let’s say you’re Robert Craft, the owner of The New England Patriots. And you needed to draft a quarterback to back up Tom Brady. And let’s say you had 10 prospects to choose from. What’s going to drive your decision making process?I’m going to say that you’d take a “best overall” approach with your decision making process. Meaning, who runs the fastest; who has a better completion ratio; who’s able to lead a team to victory when the game is tough. And, perhaps you’d settle for the quarterback who’s not the fastest, but has other positive attributes that outweigh the lack of speed, and ultimately making him the best choice for the quarterback position on their football team.

Algorithm’s Decision Making Process

As algorithms begin calculating and determining the order in which to present search results, the process is not much different than the that of determining who is the best choice for quarterback - out of 10 to chose from - for your football team.

Inbound linkage data, anchor text for each link, age of domain, internal linking structure, age of external links, the authority of the referral pages providing links, on site content, and as Bryan and I were just discussing yesterday, even the DNS history associated with a domain; these are all attributes that are part of the algorithmic calculation used in determining the most favorable order of results according to a particular search query.
However, as it might be difficult to nail down the most important attribute of what makes the best NFL Quarterback (speed, precision, leadership, etc..), it is NOT difficult to nail down the most important attribute in determining your rankings in search results - and that is linkage data.

The Power of Linkage Data
Nothing carries more weight in determining search results than linkage data. It was spelled out at the dawn of our current age of search relevance – way back in 1998 - when Larry Page and Sergey Brin developed what we now know as PageRank - Google’s search algorithm used, as they put it, to bring order to an otherwise chaotic pile of data, better known as the web.

In case you’ve never read the origin of PageRank, here is an excerpt from Para 2.1.1 from Larry Page’s The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine view source

2.1.1 Description of PageRank Calculation

Academic citation literature has been applied to the web, largely by counting citations or backlinks to a given page. This gives some approximation of a page’s importance or quality. PageRank extends this idea by not counting links from all pages equally, and by normalizing by the number of links on a page. PageRank is defined as follows:

We assume page A has pages T1…Tn which point to it (i.e., are citations). The parameter d is a damping factor which can be set between 0 and 1. We usually set d to 0.85. There are more details about d in the next section. Also C(A) is defined as the number of links going out of page A. The PageRank of a page A is given as follows:

PR(A) = (1-d) + d (PR(T1)/C(T1) + … + PR(Tn)/C(Tn))

Note that the PageRanks form a probability distribution over web pages, so the sum of all web pages’ PageRanks will be one.

PageRank or PR(A) can be calculated using a simple iterative algorithm, and corresponds to the principal eigenvector of the normalized link matrix of the web. Also, a PageRank for 26 million web pages can be computed in a few hours on a medium size workstation. There are many other details which are beyond the scope of this paper.

Although the algorithms has changes continuously, or I should say updated – and mostly to account of spam – the core has not changed, and that is determining the search results based on linkage data – or as Larry Page puts it – citations.

Building A Strong / Diverse Link Portfolio

With linkage data being the most important element, it should constitute the majority of your efforts in any SEO endeavor. However, within the parameters of linkage data, there is a way to maximize and leverage the full crediting power of the links you build, and you do this by creating a diverse link portfolio.

I’ll use Bryan - the owner here at OMG - as my example. He is targeting the phrase “make money online” as one of his most profitable keyphrases to rank this blog for. However, if all of his links - all 12,600 of them - where anchor texted with the phrase “make money online” it would actually hurt, not help, the authority of his link building efforts, and his overall portfolio.

To build the strong, authoritative link portfolio you need for that #1 position in Google, you must diversify your anchor texts by using phrase variations, long tail phrases, etc… This provides a much more diverse linking structure, or linking theme, which presents a much higher level of authority to search algorithms, and sets the stage for your pages to outrank your competitors who have less authoritative link portfolios.

Conclusion

Focus on diversifying your link portfolio, don’t use the same anchor text, and don’t build all of your links from the same resources. I take the approach of getting links from whomever and where ever I can. Even if it’s from non-associated, low authoritative content, it is at least adding to the volume of my portfolio, which complements the more authoritative links I have to work hard for / or pay to get.

By being consistent, steady, and focused with this type of strategy, you will soon see your pages make their way straight into the top ranking positions in all major search engines. And then you’ll be commanding the search market for your most profitable keyphrases, capturing high volumes of quality traffic, and expanding your business based on increased sales and revenue!

As always, I do not take this time and opportunity for granted. I sincerely appreciate Bryan, and all you - the readers here at OMG - for allowing me to share my thoughts about search optimization, and discuss the fascinating, and quickly changing world of the world wide web…

- Robert Holland - SEO Consultant For OMG

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