Google Agent Rank
An algorithm based reputation system and digital signature: the Google Agent Rank; http://eicker.at/GoogleAgentRank
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Gerrit Eicker
Google Plus Direct Connect
Merging social and search: Google Plus Direct Connect might change Google fundamentally; http://eicker.at/GoogleDirectConnect
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Gerrit Eicker
Google: “Google+ Direct Connect lets you quickly navigate to a Google+ page (and even add that page to your circles) when using Google Search. For example, if you searched for the query ‘+youtube’ or ‘+pepsi,’ you could be immediately taken to the YouTube Google+ page, or the Pepsi Google+ page, and given the option to add the page to your circles. … When searching for a major brand, company, or cultural entity, try placing a ‘+’ in front of your query. When you use the ‘+’ operator before your search query, it lets us know that you want to find a Google+ page. … A page’s eligibility for Google+ Direct Connect is determined algorithmically, based on certain signals we use to help understand your page’s relevancy and popularity. In addition to this analysis, we look for a link between your Google+ page and your website. To help Google associate this content, be sure to connect your Google+ page and your website using the Google+ badge, or by adding a snippet of code to your site, in addition to adding your website link to your page.”
SEL: “Postscript From Danny Sullivan: Direct Connect seems yet another clever bribe where Google is leveraging everything it can to win support for Google Plus. … Google’s made changes over the years that help big brands see far less negative references to themselves in search results than in the past, mainly by allowing more than one page from a site to help ‘push’ other content ‘down.’ But that’s not foolproof, especially when negative news is happening. – Consider the searches for Toyota that were bringing up negative news stories during the safety recalls of last year. If Toyota is pushing that people to find them by searching for +Toyota, they would see none of that on Google. – Interestingly, Bing offered a similar solution that didn’t depend on having to take part in a social network. Bing’s ‘Best Match’ results showed only one site when there was great confidence in the query. But Bing quietly dropped this feature since it launched, a sign that consumers didn’t like it.”
Wired: “But more importantly, Google integrates Plus into its web-dominating search engine. With Google+ Direct Connect, searchers can insert a ‘+’ before their query and jump directly to a business’s Google+ page. Type ‘+YouTube’ into a Google search box, for instance, and Google will take you straight to YouTube’s Plus page. – This is where Google will have an advantage over Facebook: With a broad array of services like search and Gmail and Chrome and Android, Google offers tools that are fundamental to the online lives of so many people – and these can be tied to Google+. As Google+ evolves, Google will have the means to promote its social network – and the branded Pages within it – in ways that Facebook or Twitter cannot.”
ZDNet: “But with Google shortcut called Direct Connect, all I have to do is type a ‘+’ in front of the company name – such as ‘+Amazon’ – and the Google+ Page comes up. Better yet, just by typing ‘+A’ into the search box, I get a listing of Google+ Pages for Amazon, ATundT, Angry Birds and ABC News. And surely, there will soon be more in that list. – In that sense, a Google+ Page becomes a must-have for any company looking to establish a presence on the Internet, just as a Web site itself was the must-have a decade ago and Twitter and Facebooks accounts have been in recent years. The difference is that Facebook and Twitter have largely been closed-wall gardens, a members-only type of environment. … You see, this is no longer just about ‘social.’ This is the face of the new interactive Internet, a one-up over the traditional Web site. These Google+ pages are powered by search, share and followers. This isn’t a static place where companies host their corporate blogs or post their news releases. This is a dynamic environment where companies host live video ‘hangout’ sessions and engage in discussions with their followers.”
Gerrit Eicker
Google Plus Search Impact
Google adds public Google Plus posts to Google Social Search, impacting Google Search; http://eicker.at/GooglePlusSearchImpact
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Gerrit Eicker
Google: “Back in 2009, we launched Google Social Search, and we’ve made several improvements since then. And earlier this year we made an update which let you get more information from people you’re connected to on other publicly available sites. Today, we’re including public Google+ posts as well. So if you’re signed into your Google Account, your search results may start including posts shared publicly by people you’re connected to on Google+. … Remember, to experience this updated feature, you’ll need to be on Google+ and also make sure that you’re logged into your Google Account when you search. In addition, only public posts on Google+ are visible in search results. Private posts on Google+ aren’t. – We’re rolling out this update over the coming days. This is just the latest step in helping you find the most relevant information possible, personalized to your interests and the people you care about.”
SEL: “Google has added another source to its social search results: public posts from Google Plus. – Social search has been adding annotations to search results when content from your social connections (not to be confused with your Google+ Circles) was shared on services such as Twitter, LinkedIn and others. – Soon you may start seeing annotations that mention Google’s own social service, and these will come from people in your Google+ circles… Google Social Search continues to operate as before. Things shared socially at places like Twitter and Facebook by those you’re connected with may appear with annotations and rank better in results. – The main difference is, as Google’s post says, is that things you share on Google+ itself are now part of the mix.”
TC: “In a move that was pretty much inevitable in Google’s overall strategy of eventual Google+ integration into most if not all Google products, the search engine has announced that it will now be including publicly shared Google+ posts in its ‘social search’ results. … After getting confirmation from Google, Danny Sullivan responds, ‘It’s new. Posts you share on Google+ now appear and rank better. Previously, only posts you shared elsewhere would.‘”
Gerrit Eicker
Wired: “Google is making plans to turn its +1 button into a crowdsourcing tool that helps it re-order search results and fight web spam. – While not surprising, the move would bring Google’s search engine into the social networking era, while simultaneously creating a new avenue for blackhats to manipulate search results and potentially incurring the wrath of trust-busting authorities. – Google confirmed its plans in an e-mail to Wired.com: ‘Google will study the clicks on +1 buttons as a signal that influences the ranking and appearance of websites in search results,’ a spokesman wrote. ‘The purpose of any ranking signal is to improve overall search quality. For +1’s and other social ranking signals, as with any new ranking signal, we’ll be starting carefully and learning how those signals are related to quality.'”
Gerrit Eicker
Google Plus One
Google wants likes too: +1 adds shared links to Buzz profiles, impacts search results of followers; http://eicker.at/PlusOne
Gerrit Eicker
Google Updates Social Search
Google: Social Search will now be mixed throughout results, adds notes, connects social media; http://eicker.at/SocialSearch
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Gerrit Eicker
Google: “First, social search results will now be mixed throughout your results based on their relevance (in the past they only appeared at the bottom). … Second, we’ve made Social Search more comprehensive by adding notes for links people have shared on Twitter and other sites. … Third, we’ve given you more control over how you connect accounts, and made connecting accounts more convenient. … As always, you’ll only get social search results when you choose to log in to your Google Account. We’re starting to roll out the updates today on Google.com in English only and you’ll see them appear in the coming week.”
GigaOM: “Google is slowly finding its social legs and is rolling out a set of improvements to its search product that help it keep pace with rivals, who are increasingly weaving social signals into search results. … It’s not the social layer that Google is said to be working on. But it’s another sign that shows Google is figuring out how social fits into its existing properties. The pressure is on the web giant to sort out its strategy in search as rivals like Bing and upstarts Blekko, Greplin, Wajam and others bring the fight to Google.”
FC: “This is a clever, if subtle, way to inject a little extra social relevance into Google’s core business of search, and it will make Googling something seem a little more personalized than simply interacting with a blind, international giant digital tool. It also differentiates it from competitors, like the fast-growing Bing… Will this trick work to convince us Google’s good at social media? Is this the very first layer of social network technology that may become the rumored Google Me social network? We can’t tell. Maybe we’ll Google it up and see what our friends, co-workers and that girl from the coffee shop we once Twittered think.”
RWW: “This, however, is personalization taken to another level. This is personalization in the form of looking at who you know, who you’re connected to on various social networks, and ranking content according to who created it and who shared it. We were told that Google will even go a step further and look at content shared by friends of friends. … Your friends don’t have to even have a Google profile for their content to show up in your search. If you’re friends with them on Twitter and you connect your Twitter account, you can see what they share on Twitter in your search results. … A move to create another, stand-alone social network would seem like folly to some, especially with the company’s track record when it comes to social. This move, on the other hand, feels just right. Gather the information and use it as yet another signal on what is relevant to your search.”
Gerrit Eicker
Bing(oogle)?
Sullivan: Google says Bing watches what people search for on Google to improve its search listings; http://eicker.at/BingGoogle
Gerrit Eicker 14:06 on 1. December 2011 Permalink |
SEL: “Google’s Agent Rank Patent Application – The method of ranking based upon reputation scores is described in an analogy based upon PageRank. There’s also some discussion of an alternative possibility of using a seed group of trusted agents to endorse other content. Agents whose content receives consistently strong endorsements might gain reputation under that method. In either implementation, the agent’s reputation ultimately depends on the quality of the content which they sign. … The use of digital signatures enables the reputation system to link reputations with individual agents, and adjust the relative rankings based on all of the content each agent chooses to associate himself or herself with, no matter where the content may be located. That could even include content that isn’t on the internet. … This is a very different way of providing rankings for pages, based upon the reputations of agents who may have interacted with, and digitally signed content on those pages.”
SbtS: “Are You Trusted by Google? – Are you a robot? A spammer? A sock puppet? A trusted author and content developer? A trusted agent in the eyes of Google? … In a whitepaper from last year, Reputation Systems for Open Collaboration, Bo Adler of Fujitsu Labs of America, Ian Pyey of CloudFlare, Inc., and Luca de Alfaro and Ashutosh Kulshreshtha from Google describe two different collaborative reputation systems that they worked on. One of them is a WikiTrust reputation system for Wikipedia authors and content, and the other is the Crowdsensus reputation system for Google Maps editors. – Both systems are interesting, and as the authors note, both fulfill very different needs in very different ways. … I’ve written about Google’s Agent Rank here a few times recently, and Google published a new Agent Rank continuation patent application last week which expands upon one aspect of the patent filing within its claims section. … [T]he newest version of this patent is transformed to focus upon this aspect of Agent Rank. It introduces the concept of ‘trusted agents,’ who might endorse content items created by others. … Are reputation or user rank scores influencing rankings in search results at present? Chances are that they may be in the future, if they aren’t now. – How does one become a ‘trusted agent?’”
SEOmoz: “Building The Implicit Social Graph – Google Plus is Google’s latest attempt at building an explicit social graph that they control, but Google has been building out an implicit social graph for quite some time. This graph is still relatively naive compared to the maturity of the link graph, but search engines continue to develop this graph. Since it is already directly influencing rankings, and its value will increase, it’s important to understand how this type of social graph is being built. In this post, I’ll look at some of the methods for building the social graph, as well as looking at explicit vs. implicit social graphs. … One of the limitations of building an implicit social graph is that you don’t have the data to test against to confirm the predictions and relationships that graph discovers. It still has to depend on the data made public, but is limited by relationships that are held private [aka Facebook]. Google Plus, among other things, creates a massive set of explicit social graph data, which can be used for machine learning and accuracy checking. … Even with publicly available, and privately available, explicit social data, there is still a strong incentive to build out the implicit graph. The explicit graph can be used to make improvements upon this graph. The implicit graph is one area where Google has a significant advantage over Facebook. – It’s no secret that the social graph appears to be the next evolution with increasing uses of social factors, social elements in search, and mechanisms that will lead into AgentRank/AuthorRank, which will tie directly into the implicit social graph.”
ComLUV: “Google Agent Rank and its Impact on Blogging – For many users and businesses Google is the Internet. People don’t search for things anymore, they Google them. The silly sounding brand name has permeated almost every aspect of the Internet and is growing daily. One new twist Google may be adding to the mix is something they call Agent Rank. … Agent Rank has the potential to be an incredible boon to bloggers of any topic or vertical. Trusted writers will not only bring their great material with them to a new project, they will bring a built-in trust boost in Google to whatever site they are working for. … If an author can be confident that their Agent Rank could bring about better Google rankings then they can approach projects with a new value proposition. … When or if Agent Rank will be implemented is unknown. Google recently released an addendum to their Google Profiles they call Authorship. … It is unknown if this is an early attempt to roll out Agent Rank in some form, but it is clearly related to the patent and has some value even in its current state.”
Google: “Today we’re beginning to support authorship markup – a way to connect authors with their content on the web. We’re experimenting with using this data to help people find content from great authors in our search results. – We now support markup that enables websites to publicly link within their site from content to author pages. … The markup uses existing standards such as HTML5 (rel=”author”) and XFN (rel=”me”) to enable search engines and other web services to identify works by the same author across the web. If you’re already doing structured data markup using microdata from schema.org, we’ll interpret that authorship information as well. … We know that great content comes from great authors, and we’re looking closely at ways this markup could help us highlight authors and rank search results.“