New Google Patent Named Ranking Documents To Penalize Spammers

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Google is planning to take action on websites which try to manipulate the organic rankings by doing changes on their website or building links within a specified time period. This time period is measured and compared using a method which is more appropriately known as ranking documents. Now Google would not fall prey to the tactics used by the webmasters in manipulating the rankings, instead it would use the power of ranking documents to measure correctly the kind of changes that a webmaster did for his/her site and the reactions in ranking correspondingly. This technique confuses a spammer and helps the genuinely popular websites to rank well. This is a strict warning to those webmasters who constantly change the on page elements on their website. Google would be able to find those elements which had remained unidentified by Google’s spam prevention algorithm.

Ranking Documents

The Three Ranks


There are three types of ranks associated with this Patent. These are given below:-

First Rank

It happens when you make first changes to your website (Remember it may happen through both on page and off page optimization). Google gives you its first rank which can be positive or negative.

Second Rank

This can be called as the target rank or the final rank that your website would get after the transition period is over. This rank would come after the transition period is over. You can think of transition period as the time period where Google keeps an eye on your tactics.

Transition Rank

This is the rank which confuses the webmasters and forces them to review their tactics, ultimately allowing Google to detect the methods used to manipulate Google rankings. Hence, the webmasters should be careful with their strategy during this time period.

What changes are expected?

Be ready for some awkward behavior by Google. You might gain rankings, lose rankings, or remain stable in rankings for an unspecified period of time after doing changes on your site. If you recently made some changes on the website but do not see improvement or see a negative rankings happening then do not panic. This is bound to happen because of this patent.

What to do next?

Forget about keyword stuffing, title keyword stuffing, keyword stuffed description or search engine focused content. Create website only for the users. Create titles that are user friendly, give appropriate descriptions assuming a user is reading them, do not stuff keywords on H1 tags or other areas. Be straight in your link building approach; find authoritative sources of links, no need to follow a particular strategy, change your link building strategy time to time. Remember one good link is better than hundreds of bad links. Quality of links matters more than quantity. The truth is if you are maintaining a quality site focused on users and if the users are loving you then no such patents can stop your website from showing up on the search results. Just remain focused on following search engine guidelines, avoid spamming, build backlinks but revise your strategy, do not make on page changes so often and add fresh content to your website regularly. These things would surely help your website to achieve good rankings.

Also See:-

Domain authority and Google results
Google Panda 3.9.1
How does Google applies Semantic Search
Emanuel Update
Google Sandbox effect
Google Penguin update
Knowledge Graph
Google changes its favicon