Google Patent Application Provides Insights to New Ranking Signals

Google, as you know, is always coming up with something clever, and our digital marketing specialists at The Web Guys want to help you keep up. Google recently published a patent application entitled Website Representation Vector to Generate Search Results and Classify Website, and it’s complicated. Fortunately, we’re here to break it down and discuss how it may affect your rankings.

Bite-Sized Pieces

There are some basic facts related to this patent that, together, do a good job of summing the thing up. These facts include:

• Google’s new brainchild (also known as a patent application) was very recently published at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
• Website Representation Vectors are intended to classify websites according to features and patterns that are going on behind the scenes of these sites, and the patent in question uses Neural Networks to parse this information and classify, classify, classify.
• The classification system involved is based on vectors – or composite representations – within specific areas of knowledge called knowledge domains, including health, AI, finance, and more. Sites that find themselves so classified can benefit from a Google classification boost. This classification system will be broken down further by incorporating the website’s determined level of expertise on the knowledge domain it represents.

Ultimately, the process this patent employs may lessen the number of sites Google must search before returning results. The touchpoints listed represent the infrastructure of the new patent application.

Generating Website Classifications

It’s all well and good to say you’re going to classify websites, but how does this patent intend to do that, you might ask. The patent incorporates a bit of a reveal by sharing that this classification may be based upon website content that helps generate an accurate representation of the site. Such content can include:

• Text found on the website
• Images found on the website
• Other content found on the website (links for example)
• Any combination of any two or more of the above

A So-Called “Medic Update”

Initially, the patent was presumed to affect only medical websites, but it’s actually more inclusive. The patent application itself states that it covers a variety of industries but cites health and AI websites as examples. The patent is geared to assess varied industries and websites’ authors’ varying levels of expertise, which are described as an expert, apprentice, and layperson. In sticking with the medic vibe, which remains a fairly accurate take on what the patent actually covers, the patent incorporates the example of a health website and categorizes doctors as experts, med students as apprentices, and laypeople as non-experts.

Looking to Score on Quality

Google’s latest patent progeny reports that it might go on to classify websites further – based upon whether they meet specific quality score metrics. While the patent doesn’t specifically describe what such quality scores might be, Google has already begun to obtain patents for website quality scores. In fact, a digital marketing expert – not a layperson – can help you move your website’s quality score in the right direction.

Looking to Score on Quality

Google’s latest patent progeny reports that it might go on to classify websites further – based upon whether they meet specific quality score metrics. While the patent doesn’t specifically describe what such quality scores might be, Google has already begun to obtain patents for website quality scores. In fact, a digital marketing expert – not a layperson – can help you move your website’s quality score in the right direction.

Knowledge Domains and Rank

When a query is for a specific knowledge domain – or specific area of knowledge, such as health – the resulting hits may be from sites that are classified by the Google patent as being part of that knowledge domain. When a searcher is looking for an answer related to a question about their health, for example, the best responses are likely to come from a website that’s classified as being in the medical knowledge domain. The patent is designed to help further whittle results pages to those that tick all the boxes related to industry, expertise, and quality score. The resulting pages will then be ranked according to relevance and level of authority.

It’s Time to EAT

Google implements important quality raters that are often referenced as EAT, which stands for Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness. And this is a relatively efficient and effective way to define Google’s latest patent’s vector offerings. For example, those medical websites at the expert level – because we love a theme – must provide medical information from experts in the field who have the appropriate accreditation; should be executed in a professional style; and should be reviewed, edited, and updated regularly.

None of this, however, means that there is only room for websites touting the highest level of expertise within Google’s purview – far from it. Sometimes consumers are looking for information about actually living with an illness, and a person who has experienced the same malady personally may provide the most helpful information. In fact, there are support forums all over the web that explore specific illnesses among victims of these diseases and their loved ones. This layperson level of sharing information can play an important role online, but it’s extremely important to recognize such pages for what they are.

The portion of EAT that Google’s latest patent reveals doesn’t address is trustworthiness, but if its assessment is accurate regarding both expertise and authority, trustworthiness may be presumed. Regardless, the new patent application sheds some serious light on how Google will be rating website quality and how it may apply its findings.

Digging Deep

The idea is that Google will be classifying websites into groups according to their specific knowledge domains and will dig a bit deeper by further classifying the sites within these classifications into levels of expertise. In the process, Google intends to provide consumers with websites that have been quality scored relative to other websites of similar ilk. As Google’s patents often do, this one gets very complicated very quickly, but the upshot is that this patent may reduce the amount of storage needed for thorough search results and may improve consumers’ search results by more effectively and efficiently providing them with the caliber of information they seek.

Keep Up with Google by Consulting with Our Digital Marketing Experts Today

Google, as you know, is always coming up with something clever, and it helps to keep up. At The Web Guys, our digital marketing stars take great pride in helping clients like you optimize their online presence through careful attention to detail and a thorough understanding of the current online landscape. To learn more about our team and our digital marketing services, contact us at 317-805-4933 today.