One measure of Google's
influence is the lengths that people go to in order
to ensure a high search rank.
In this sense Google is
starting to define how the net is organised.
Many people now actively try to
catch out Google's indexing technology.
Some put together huge numbers
of self-referential pages, bolstered with lots of
text to try to boost their rankings for particular
searches.
Web logs, or blogs, pose a
particular problem for Google as one of their
defining features is the links they have to other
blogs.
As the numbers of blogs has
grown the influence they have over rankings has
increased. In some cases blogs referring to a
webpage on a particular subject are ranked higher
than the page itself.
To combat this Google has
reportedly considered creating an index just for the
web journals.
Google dance
Many net consultants are making
a living advising firms on the best way to put
together their webpage to ensure it gets high up the
Google rankings.
They have identified a
phenomenon known as the Google dance.
This is something that happens
every 36 days or so when Google updates its index
and tweaks its search system.
For a few days the results you
will get back from Google's nine servers, which can
be searched independently, will vary widely.
Now Google has stopped simply
reflecting the organisation of the web. Instead a
high Google rank for a search now defines a page's
quality and relevance.
