The other day on twitter I mentioned a dramatic change in the way the New York Times was creating their content and the start of a new in linking strategy for them.

Wikipedia does have an incredible internal linking structure. And now it appears as if the NYT is going to try and become the Encyclopedia Britannica of all news, events and world atlas in development.

How sites link to their own content internally tells the search engines more about what matters most to the site. In this case we are talking text links. No image links, No Javascript Links, No Image Map Links – Only keyword focused embedded text links to other content and relative  items.

WikiPedia links internally to it’s own  pages, every time a word or phrase with it’s own page is referenced. All pages every time  site-wide for Wikipedia. If a topic has a page anywhere on WikiPedia, the page links from any use of that word or phrase back to that page about that word or phrase.

Check out the  screen shot on the left of a NYT’s article from July 24 2009, notice there is only one link in the first 300 words of the article.  The article  itself has many opportunities for more links but the only one showing takes you to, wait for it, the exact same page?

Is this an automated process by the NYT’s to create an internal linking structure that has proven to be an awesome strategy for wikipedia?

Now lets look at an article screen shot on the right from November  10th 2009.

The topics are relatively the same and the keywords in many cases are similar.  But notice the amount of links to other NYT articles has literally quintupled!!

Clearly someone over there has gotten on the SEO bandwagon in a serious way. I am predicting the intra site linking strategy will prove to be a major ranking success for the New York Times.

Newspapers that use “Related Stories” pages are doing a good job at creating usability and maintaining topical relevance.

So what are the big takeaways from the NYT’s new strategy? have they learned from the likes of wikipedia?

1) Create content rich definition pages that explain your products, service or creates reference pages clearly

2) Wikipedia’s success comes from people knowing what to expect when they click on the site –The NYT links are becoming highly relevant and will continue to refine over time.

Watch for the NYT’s to improve their landing pages to align users expectations based on what they read in the search engine results and the actual content of their site.

3) Use intra-site links, instead of navigation. Wikipedia uses an intensive intra-site linking strategy where a new page is “linked to (with the key term in the anchor text) from one (usually more) other Wikipedia pages.”  This is where the NYT totally gets it right!

4) Make more — and more — content. Text, images, audio and video. In this instance we are referring to

5) Don’t be afraid to edit your site, especially if you are creating new intra-links, you are rewarded for updating content, so go for it.

6) Create an authority page that attracts links, needless to say the NYT is a high authority site.

7) Whenever you add a new page, skim through the rest of your content to look for ways, even creative ways, those other topics relate to your new page

Sitemap Links, make sure you site has one, everyone one is familiar and agrees with this basic tenant of a site map

Ranking Domains Using Domain Maturity
Invented by Janine Crumb, Krishna C Gade, Rangan Majumder, Vishnu Challam
Assigned to Microsoft
US Patent Application 20080086467
Published April 10, 2008
Filed October 10, 2006

Abstract

Ranking domains for search engines is provided herein. To rank a domain, contributing domains associated with the domain are identified. Additionally, the maturity of each of the contributing domains is determined. A rank for the domain is then determined based at least in part on the maturity of each of the contributing domains. The domain rankings may then be used to order results for search queries.

    SHOOK, HARDY & BACON L.L.P.;(c/o MICROSOFT CORPORATION)
    INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY DEPARTMENT, 2555 GRAND BOULEVARD
    KANSAS CITY
    MO
    64108-2613
    US

1. A method for ranking a domain, the method comprising:receiving a list of one or more contributing domains associated with the domain;determining a maturity for at least one of the one or more contributing domains; andcalculating a rank for the domain based at least in part on the maturity for the at least one of the one or more contributing domains.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the maturity for at least one of the one or more contributing domains comprises identifying at least one of the one or more contributing domains as a mature domain.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the mature domain is identified based on factors comprising at least one of a date of domain registration and a date of first discovery of the mature domain.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the mature domain is a contributing domain that has been registered for more than one year without having expired or being swapped.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein calculating the rank for the domain comprises calculating the rank based at least in part on a rank of the mature domain.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the maturity for at least one of the one or more contributing domains comprises identifying at least one of the one or more contributing domains as an immature domain; andwherein calculating the rank for the domain comprises calculating the rank based at least in part on a rank of the immature domain, wherein the rank of the immature domain is based on contributing domains associated with the immature domain that have been identified as mature domains.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein calculating the rank for the domain comprises calculating the rank based on a fraction of a number associated with at least one of the one or more contributing domains, wherein the fraction of the number associated with the at least one of the one or more contributing domains corresponds to the maturity of the at least one of the one or more contributing domains.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the one or more contributing domains comprise a domain that includes at least one link to the domain.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising using the rank of the domain to facilitate ordering results for a search query that include the domain.

10. A method for presenting search results, the method comprising:receiving information associated with a plurality of domains;determining a maturity for each of one or more contributing domains associated with each of the plurality of domains;calculating a rank for each of the plurality of domains based at least in part on the maturity for at least one of the one or more contributing domains associated with the each of the plurality of domains;in response to receiving a search query, generating one or more search results comprising at least one of the plurality of domains that match the search query; andpresenting the one or more search results in accordance with ranks of the at least one of the plurality of domains that match the search query.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein determining the maturity for each of the one or more contributing domains associated with each of the plurality of domains comprises identifying at least one of the one or more contributing domains as a mature domain.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein calculating the rank for each of the plurality of domains comprises calculating the rank based at least in part on a rank of the mature domain.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein determining the maturity for each of the one or more contributing domains associated with each of the plurality of domains comprises identifying at least one of the one or more contributing domains as an immature domain; andwherein calculating the rank for each of the plurality of domains comprises calculating the rank based at least in part on a rank of the mature domain and a rank of the immature domain, wherein the rank of the immature domain is based only on contributing domains associated with the immature domain that have been identified as mature domains.

14. The method of claim 10, wherein calculating the rank for each of the plurality of domains comprises calculating the rank based on a fraction of a rank associated with at least one of the one or more contributing domains, wherein the fraction of the rank associated with the at least one of the one or more contributing domains corresponds to the maturity of the at least one of the one or more contributing domains.

15. A search engine for ranking search results, the search engine comprising:a ranking component configured to determine one or more contributing domains associated with each of a plurality of domains, to determine a maturity for each of the one or more contributing domains, and to calculate a rank for each of the plurality of domains based at least in part on the maturity for at least one of the one or more contributing domains; anda searching component configured to perform a search in response to a search query and to return one or more search results comprising at least one of the plurality of domains that match the search query.

16. The search engine of claim 15, further comprising a user interface component configured to receive the search query and to present the one or more search results in accordance with the ranks of the at least one of the plurality of domains that match the search query.

17. The search engine of claim 15, wherein the ranking component is further configured to determine the maturity for each of the one or more contributing domains by identifying at least one of the one or more contributing domains as a mature domain.

18. The search engine of claim 17, wherein the ranking component is further configured to calculate the rank for each of the plurality of domains based at least in part on a rank of the mature domain.

19. The search engine of claim 17, wherein the ranking component is further configured to determine the maturity for each of the one or more contributing domains by identifying at least one of the one or more contributing domains as an immature domain and to calculate the rank for each of the plurality of domains based at least in part on a rank of the mature domain and a rank of the immature domain, wherein the rank of the immature domain is based only on contributing domains associated with the immature domain that have been identified as mature domains.

20. The search engine of claim 15, wherein the ranking component is further configured to calculate the rank for each of the plurality of domains based on a fraction of a rank associated with at least one of the one or more contributing domains, wherein the fraction of the rank associated with the at least one of the one or more contributing domains corresponds to the maturity of the at least one of the one or more contributing domains.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

[0001]Not Applicable.

STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT

[0002]Not Applicable.

BACKGROUND

[0003]Domain ranking is frequently used by search engines to facilitate the ordering of results for a search query. In general, a domain may be ranked based in part on the number of contributing domains associated with that domain. A contributing domain may be, for instance, one that includes a link to the domain being ranked. For example, if hundreds of other domains that maintain at least one web site include one or more links to a particular domain, the domain may receive a higher rank than another domain that is referenced by just a few other domains. In addition to the number of contributing domains, ranks of the contributing domains may influence the rank for the domain as well. For example, if a trusted, popular domain, such as Yahoo.com or CNN.com, includes a link to the domain, the ranks for such popular domains may be attributed to the rank for the domain. Receiving a higher domain ranking often means that the domain would be listed above other competing domains, thereby affording more visits by those browsing or searching the Internet. For domains that maintain commercial web sites or web sites that charge advertisers on per-click or per-visit basis, a higher domain ranking means better profitability. For example, sites like Yahoo.com and CNN.com, which are visited by millions of people each day, attract many commercial advertisers who are willing to pay large fees.

[0004]Typically, a domain includes links to other domains to make its content more useful and attractive for its visitors. Most existing domain ranking algorithms often assume that a number of contributing domains that maintain one or more links to a particular domain provides an indication of the popularity or utility of the particular domain. Those algorithms also tend to assume that the particular domain is popular and/or useful if a link is included in another domain that is well-known for its popularity and utility, such as MSN.com. These assumptions have been held to be mostly correct when it was neither easy nor cheap to register and maintain a domain.

[0005]Due in part to increased competition in the domain registration market in recent years, however, the cost involved in purchasing a domain has decreased significantly. In some cases, domain registrars even offer free domain registrations for up to thirty to sixty day trial periods. Spammers often take advantage of such offers through a spam technique known as a web farm. In particular, spammers purchase or otherwise obtain a large number of sites and interlink the sites together to increase the sites’ rankings by artificially increasing the number of contributing domains for some or all of the sites. In effect, this practice defeats the assumption that the more a domain is referenced by other domains, the more likely that the domains is popular and/or useful such that it should be highly ranked.

SUMMARY

[0006]This summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the Detailed Description. This summary is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.

[0007]Embodiments of the present invention relate to, among other things, ranking a domain. One or more contributing domains associated with a target domain are identified and the maturity of the contributing domains is determined. By way of example only and not limitation, the maturity of a contributing domain may be determined based on the date that it was registered or the date that it was first discovered by a search engine. A rank for the target domain is then calculated based on the maturity of the contributing domains associated with that target domain. Accordingly, when a search engine receives a search query, results may be ordered based at least in part on the domain rankings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWING

[0008]The present invention is described in detail below with reference to the attached drawing figures, wherein:

[0009]FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an exemplary computing environment suitable for use in implementing the present invention;

[0010]FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an exemplary system in which embodiments of the present invention may be employed;

[0011]FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an exemplary search engine in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention;

[0012]FIG. 4 is a flow diagram showing a method for ranking a domain in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention; and

[0013]FIG. 5. is a flow diagram showing a method for presenting search results in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0014]The subject matter of the present invention is described with specificity herein to meet statutory requirements. However, the description itself is not intended to limit the scope of this patent. Rather, the inventors have contemplated that the claimed subject matter might also be embodied in other ways, to include different steps or combinations of steps similar to the ones described in this document, in conjunction with other present or future technologies. Moreover, although the terms “step” and/or “block” may be used herein to connote different elements of methods employed, the terms should not be interpreted as implying any particular order among or between various steps herein disclosed unless and except when the order of individual steps is explicitly described.

Overview

[0015]Embodiments of the present invention provide an approach for ranking a domain based on the maturity of contributing domains associated with the domain. By way of example only and not limitation, a maturity of a contributing domain may be based on the date that the contributing domain was registered or the date that the contributing domain was first discovered by a search engine.

[0016]Less mature (i.e., newer) domains typically have a higher likelihood of being spam and/or being a part of a web farm that attempts to artificially inflate domain rankings for domains in the web farm. Accordingly, by taking into account the maturity of contributing domains when determining a rank for a domain, embodiments of the present invention provide domain rankings in which more relevant and useful domains may be ranked higher than spam domains and/or less relevant domains.

[0017]Accordingly, in one aspect, an embodiment of the present invention is directed to a method for ranking a domain. The method includes receiving a list of one or more contributing domains associated with the domain. The method also includes determining a maturity for at least one of the contributing domains. The method further includes calculating a rank for the domain based at least in part on the maturity for the contributing domain.

[0018]In another aspect of the invention, an embodiment is directed to a method for presenting search results. The method includes receiving information associated with a number of domains. The method also includes determining a maturity for each of one or more contributing domains associated with each domain. The method further includes calculating a rank for each of the domains based at least in part on the maturity for the contributing domains associated with the each domain. The method also includes generating one or more search results that include domains that match a search query. The method still further includes presenting the search results in accordance with ranks of the domains that match the search query.

[0019]In a further aspect, an embodiment of the present invention is directed to a search engine for ranking search results. The search engine includes a ranking component configured to determine one or more contributing domains associated with each of a number of domains. The ranking component is also configured to determine a maturity for each of the contributing domains and to calculate a rank for each of the domains based at least in part on the maturity for at least one of the contributing domains. The search engine also includes a searching component configured to perform a search in response to a search query and to return one or more search results comprising at least one of the domains that match the search query.

Exemplary Operating Environment

[0020]Referring to the drawings in general and initially to FIG. 1 in particular, an exemplary operating environment for implementing embodiments of the present invention is shown and designated generally as computing device 100. Computing device 100 is but one example of a suitable computing environment and is not intended to suggest any limitation as to the scope of use or functionality of the invention. Neither should the computing device 100 be interpreted as having any dependency or requirement relating to any one or combination of components illustrated.

[0021]The invention may be described in the general context of computer code or machine-useable instructions, including computer-executable instructions such as program modules, being executed by a computer or other machine, such as a personal data assistant or other handheld device. Generally, program modules including routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, etc., refer to code that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. The invention may be practiced in a variety of system configurations, including hand-held devices, consumer electronics, general-purpose computers, more specialty computing devices, etc. The invention may also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote-processing devices that are linked through a communications network.

[0022]Computing device 100 includes a bus 110 that directly or indirectly couples the following devices: memory 112, one or more processors 114, one or more presentation components 116, input/output (I/O) ports 118, I/O components 120, and an illustrative power supply 122. Bus 110 represents what may be one or more busses (such as an address bus, data bus, or combination thereof). Although the various blocks of FIG. 1 are shown with lines for the sake of clarity, in reality, delineating various components is not so clear, and metaphorically, the lines would more accurately be grey and fuzzy. For example, one may consider a presentation component such as a display device to be an I/O component. Also, processors have memory. We recognize that such is the nature of the art, and reiterate that the diagram of FIG. 1 is merely illustrative of an exemplary computing device that can be used in connection with one or more embodiments of the present invention. Distinction is not made between such categories as “workstation,” “server,” “laptop,” “hand-held device,” etc., as all are contemplated within the scope of FIG. 1 and reference to “computing device.”

[0023]Computing device 100 typically includes a variety of computer-readable media. By way of example, and not limitation, computer-readable media may comprises Random Access Memory (RAM); Read Only Memory (ROM); Electronically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory (EEPROM); flash memory or other memory technologies; CDROM, digital versatile disks (DVD) or other optical or holographic media; magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, carrier wave, or any other medium that can be used to encode desired information and be accessed by computing device 100.

[0024]Memory 112 includes computer-storage media in the form of volatile and/or nonvolatile memory. The memory may be removable, nonremovable, or a combination thereof. Exemplary hardware devices include solid-state memory, hard drives, optical-disc drives, etc. Computing device 100 includes one or more processors that read data from various entities such as memory 112 or I/O components 120. Presentation component(s) 116 present data indications to a user or other device. Exemplary presentation components include a display device, speaker, printing component, vibrating component, etc.

[0025]I/O port(s) 118 allow computing device 100 to be logically coupled to other devices including I/O components 120, some of which may be built in. Illustrative components include a microphone, joystick, game pad, satellite dish, scanner, printer, wireless device, etc.

Exemplary System

[0026]Referring now to FIG. 2, a block diagram is provided illustrating an exemplary system 200 in which embodiments of the present invention may be employed. It should be understood that this and other arrangements described herein are set forth only as examples. Other arrangements and elements (e.g., machines, interfaces, functions, orders, and groupings of functions, etc.) can be used in addition to or instead of those shown, and some elements may be omitted altogether. Further, many of the elements described herein are functional entities that may be implemented as discrete or distributed components or in conjunction with other components, and in any suitable combination and location. Various functions described herein as being performed by one or more entities may be carried out by hardware, firmware, and/or software. For instance, various functions may be carried out by a processor executing instructions stored in memory.

[0027]Among other components not shown, the system 200 may include multiple client devices, such as client device 202, multiple source devices, such as source device 204, and a search engine 208. Each of the client devices, source devices, and search engine may be any type of computing device, such as computing device 100 described with reference to FIG. 1, for example. The components may communicate with each other via a network 206, which may include, without limitation, one or more local area networks (LANs) and/or wide area networks (WANs). Such networking environments are commonplace in offices, enterprise-wide computer networks, intranets, and the Internet. It should be understood that any number of client devices, source devices, search engines, and networks may be employed within system 200 within the scope of the present invention.

[0028]Source devices, such as the source device 204, may maintain a variety of domains. For example, the source device 204 may be a web server that maintains multiple domains. The search engine 208 may access domain information by communicating with these source devices. For example, the search engine 208 may periodically crawl the source device 204 to access and/or update domain information, such as domain registration date, domain expiration date, domain swapping date(s), and a set of linked domains.

[0029]The search engine 208 accesses domain information from the multitude of source devices, such as the source device 204, and determines a rank for each of the domains maintained by the source devices. The ranks may be used to sort the domains when users access the search engine 208 to search for particular domains through the client device 202.

[0030]Referring now to FIG. 3, an exemplary search engine 300 in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention will be described in further detail. Among other components not shown, the search engine may include a searching component 302, a ranking component 304, a database 308, and a user interface component 306. Each component may comprise a program, routine, application, or other machine-executable code capable of performing the actions discussed herein. One skilled in the art will recognize that the components shown in FIG. 3 are provided for illustrative purposes only and other arrangements may be provided in accordance with various embodiments of the present invention.

[0031]Generally, the search engine 300 may receive search queries from client devices, such as the client device 202 of FIG. 2, via the user interface component 306. The user interface component 306 may communicate to receive search queries from client devices and pass the search queries to the searching component 302 for performing searches. The user interface component 306 may also communicate to receive search results from the searching component 302 and return the search results to the client devices.

[0032]The searching component 302 may receive a search query from the user interface component 306 and perform a search to generate search results comprising domains stored in the database 308 that match the search query in accordance with the ranks of the domains. The searching component 302 may also return the search results to the user interface component 306, which may generate a search results user interface and provide the search results user interface to the requesting client device.

[0033]The ranking component 304 may collect information associated with various domains from one or more source devices, such as the source device 204 of FIG. 2, by, for example, crawling the source devices. The ranking component 304 may determine contributing domains associated with each domain, determine a maturity for each of the contributing domains, and calculate a rank for each domain based on the maturity of the contributing domains associated with a respective domain. In some embodiments, the ranking component 304 may also save domain information and domain ranks in the database 308. In some embodiments, the maturity of a contributing domain is determined based on the date that the contributing domain was registered or the date that the contributing domain was first discovered by a search engine (e.g., when domain information does not readily provide a registration date). In some embodiments, determining the maturity of a domain also includes identifying the domain as either a mature domain or an immature domain. For example, all contributing domains that were registered more than a year ago may be identified as mature domains.

[0034]In some embodiments, a domain’s rank is calculated based in part on only mature contributing domains that are associated with the domain. For example, suppose a target domain called ClickHereForSearch.com is linked to by four other domains, Yahoo.com, MSN.com, CNN.com, and SearchesRus.com. Suppose further that the first three domains have been registered for more than one year while SearchesRus.com is a new domain that was registered less than two months ago. If, in the present example, a mature domain is defined as a domain that has been registered for more than a year without being expired or swapped, the domains, Yahoo.com, MSN.com, and CNN.com, would be identified as mature domains while SearchesRus.com would not. A rank for ClickHereForSearch.com may then be calculated based on linking from Yahoo.com, MSN.com, and CNN.com only (i.e., the mature domains) because SearchesRus.com is not a mature domain.

[0035]In other embodiments, a domain’s rank may be calculated based, at least in part, on the presence of both mature and immature contributing domains. In such embodiments, the contribution of immature domains to a target domain’s rank would be based only on the rank that the immature contributing domains received from mature domains associated with the immature contributing domains. Such embodiments recognize that although new domains often tend to be spam, not all new domains are spam and that, in fact, there are typically new domains that provide great utility. These embodiments assure that immature domains that quickly gather popularity for their utility are allowed to contribute rank that is accumulated from mature domains associated with the immature domains.

[0036]Referring back to ClickHereForSearch.com example, suppose that SearchesRus.com is a new domain that quickly gathered many other domain owners’ attention for its unique search algorithms. Suppose further that popular and/or trusted domains (i.e., mature domains), such as ABC.com, Harvard.edu, and USPS.com, include at least one link to SearchesRus.com in addition to a slew of other new domains. In the present embodiment, a rank for ClickHereForSearch.com may be calculated based not only on the contribution from the mature domains, Yahoo.com, MSN.com, and CNN.com, but also on a rank of SearchesRus.com, which was calculated based only on ranks of its mature contributing domains, ABC.com, Harvard.edu, and USPS.com.

[0037]In further embodiments, instead of identifying each contributing domain as either a mature or immature domain to determine its contribution to a target domain’s rank, each contributing domain’s maturity (e.g., the age of each contributing domain) may be used to determine the extent of the contributing domain’s contribution to the target domain’s rank. In other words, a target domain’s rank may be calculated based in part on a fraction of ranks of contributing domains associated with the domain. The fraction of each contributing domain’s rank used to determine the target domain’s rank corresponds to the maturity (e.g., age) of the contributing domain. For example, in an embodiment, domains that have been registered for more than ten years may contribute 100% of their accumulated ranks to a target domain’s rank; domains that have been registered from six to ten years may contribute 75% of their accumulated ranks to a target domain’s rank; domains that have been registered from three to six years may contribute 50% of their accumulated ranks to a target domain’s rank; domains that have been registered for one to three years may contribute 25% of their accumulated ranks to a target domain’s rank; and domains that have been registered for less than one year may only contribute 10% of their accumulated ranks.

[0038]Referring again to ClickHereForSearch.com example, suppose that Yahoo.com has been registered for more than ten years; CNN.com has been registered for seven years; MSN.com has been registered for four years; and SearchesRus.com has been registered for less than one year. The rank for ClickHereForSearch.com may be calculated based on 100% of the accumulated rank for Yahoo.com, 75% of the accumulated rank for CNN.com, 50% of the accumulated rank for MSN.com, and 10% of the accumulated rank for SearchesRus.com.

Exemplary Methods

[0039]FIG. 4 is a flow diagram illustrating a method 400 for ranking a domain in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. At block 402, contributing domains associated with a target domain are determined. Typically, the contributing domains are a set of domains that include one or more links to the target domain. As indicated above, in some embodiments, the search engine 208 periodically crawls the source devices, such as the source device 204, and collects new domain information and updates existing domain information. Such information may be used to identify contributing domains associated with the target domain.

[0040]At block 404, the maturity for each of the contributing domains associated with the target domain is determined. In general, a maturity of a domain is determined based on how long the domain has been known to exist. Typically, a maturity of a domain is determined based on the date that the domain was registered or the date that the domain was first discovered by a search engine (e.g., if the registration date cannot be ascertained).

[0041]As indicated above, in some embodiments, one or more of the contributing domains are identified as mature domains based on the maturity of the contributing domains. For example, all domains that were registered more than a year ago may be defined as mature domains. Similarly, in some embodiments, one or more of the contributing domains are determined to be immature domains based on the maturity of the contributing domains. For example, all domains that were registered or discovered for the first time by a search engine less than a year ago may be determined to be immature. In some embodiments, a maturity of a domain is reset if the domain expires or if the domain is swapped. Domain registration is typically based on year-to-year basis. Domain owners are required to pay an annual fee for keeping their domains. Domains will expire if the annual fees are not paid. Expired domains can, thereafter, be purchased by different owners. Spammers may purchase a block of domains that have been expired as well as new domains to form a Web Farm. Domain swapping occurs when domain users trade their domains. Spammers may take advantage of swapping by swapping their domains for domains that have not been tainted. Spammers may be further prevented from escaping preventive measures based on maturity of domains by resetting the maturity of the domains that have expired or have been swapped.

[0042]At block 406, a rank for the target domain is calculated. As indicated above, in some embodiments, only mature contributing domains are used to calculate the rank for the target domain. In other words, only contributing domains that have been identified as mature domains by meeting a predetermined minimum period of existence may contribute to the rank of the target domain. For example, suppose that a spammer purchases one hundred domains and has each of the one hundred domains include links to the remaining ninety nine domains. This extensive interlinking would typically afford each of the one hundred domains a potential to receive a high rank based on the number of domains that include a link thereto even though all one hundred of the domains may be less than a month old. However, the present embodiment prevents these contributing domains that have not been registered for more than a minimum period of time to qualify as mature domains. Accordingly, by not qualifying as mature domains in some embodiments, each of the one hundred spam domains may be successfully stopped from contributing ranks to the remaining ninety nine spam domain accumulating ranks.

[0043]In other embodiments, the target domain’s rank may be determined based on both mature contributing domains and immature contributing domains. However, in such embodiment, immature contributing domains contribute to the target domain’s rank only to the extent that the immature contributing domains have received rank from mature domains associated with the immature domains. For example, suppose that a mature domain is defined as a domain that has been registered for more than six months without being expired or swapped and that a target domain called ChildrensWorld.com is linked to by two other domains, ToysRus.com and NewToyCompany.com. NewToyCompany.com is a new domain that was registered less than a month ago, but is linked to by two mature domains, Kmart.com and Target.com, in addition to other newer domains. A rank for the target domain may be calculated based on a rank of NewToyCompany.com, which was calculated based only on ranks of the two mature contributing domains, Kmart.com and Target.com, in addition to the rank of ToysRus.com, which is a mature domain.

[0044]In further embodiments, the target domain’s rank is determined not by identifying mature and immature contributing domains, but by determining the extent of a contributing domain’s contribution based on its maturity. Such embodiments provide a sliding scale approach based on contributing domain maturity. In such embodiments, a fraction may be determined for each contributing domain based on its maturity and applied to determine that respective contributing domain’s contribution to the target domain’s rank. For example, contributing domains that have been registered for a longer period of time (i.e., have a greater maturity) may contribute more to a target domain’s rank than contributing domains that have been registered for a shorter period of time (i.e., have a lesser maturity).

[0045]FIG. 5 is a flow diagram illustrating a method 500 for presenting search results in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. At block 502, a search query is received at a search engine, such as the search engine 208 of FIG. 2, from a client device, such as the client device 202 of FIG. 2. At block 504, one or more search results are determined for the search query using domains that have been previously received or collected and stored in a database, such as the database 308 of FIG. 3. For example, the search engine may search the database and select one or more domains stored therein that match the search query.

[0046]At block 506, a search results user interface is generated using domain rankings to determine an order for the search results. For example, the search results may be presented with the higher ranked domains at the top such that users would see more reliable and/or popular domains first. Typically, ranks for the domains have already been determined and stored in the database prior to being used for ordering the search results. The domain rankings may have been generated in a manner similar to the embodiments described hereinabove with reference to FIG. 4. The search result user interface is then communicated from the search engine to the client device for presentation on the client device, as shown at block 508. Advantageously, the present invention’s approaches to ranking domains may be used to assist search engines to rank domains in accordance with the popularity and utility of the domains while preventing spam domains from earning undeservedly high ranks.

CONCLUSION

[0047]Embodiments of the present invention relate to, among other things, ranking a domain. One or more contributing domains associated with a target domain are identified and the maturity of the contributing domains is determined. By way of example only and not limitation, the maturity of a contributing domain may be determined based on the date that it was registered or the date that it was first discovered by a search engine. In turn, the maturity of the contributing domains may be used to calculate a rank for the target domain.

[0048]The present invention has been described in relation to particular embodiments, which are intended in all respects to be illustrative rather than restrictive. Alternative embodiments will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art to which the present invention pertains without departing from its scope.

[0049]From the foregoing, it will be seen that this invention is one well adapted to attain all the ends and objects set forth above, together with other advantages which are obvious and inherent to the system and method. It will be understood that certain features and subcombinations are of utility and may be employed without reference to other features and subcombinations. This is contemplated by and is within the scope of the claims.

Photo by Intersection ConsultingHow best to measure a blogs worth? I have been thinking about the value of a blog post and the content residing on a blog.  More importantly, what value and how do readers and other bloggers treat your posts and in turn what ideas did the original post provoke within the reader and community.

A good blog post is one that is capable of generating new ideas which in turn will generate more good ideas, etc.. A good blog post will generate many “daughter ideas” and a bad blog post will not generate any thought provoking ideas or actionable results.

You may try to apply this “what have you done for me lately” methodology to value a posts worth. What we would measure would not be a blog as a whole but each of the posts to see how these posts have an impact on other posts.

Good blog posts receive comments, trackbacks, post links, and are discussed, expanded, reviewed and criticized in other posts. The blog posts inherent good is multiplied by the net, creating what I would call “daughter posts”, bad posts have no descendants.

By establishing an expertise in a given area, many blogs raise their visibility with their target market. Using your blog to grow groups around a technology, cause, political issue or hobby is also a form of strategic PR, personal branding and just plain old good marketing.

Measuring placements, quantity, media format, quality, sentiment and reach help establish a methodolgy in rating and ranking a blog posts overall worth.

Do your blog posts live on?

Photo by Jason MichaelWhat is Performance Marketing
Lets define Performance Marketing:  the practice of targeted marketing to generate consumer behavior. The behavior may be a purchase, registration, click, forward something to a friend, download a white paper,  click a chicklet, etc.. In this vision, the big difference in branding, is that it aims to generate a positive attitude toward the brand, and then moves the attitude/outlook to become a particular behavior.

Performance Internet Marketing,  is the most interactive and measurable marketing known today! The Performance component in the phrase is the measurement and then optimization to maximize the actions that the user will take, rooted within a campaign.

Long Term Vision
Performance Marketing is focused on clicks and conversions, all the attention, and performance evaluation deals with not just the immediate effects but long term outcome of a campaign and branding strategy as well. A good campaign is fully focused on the long term. In fact, if what is being promoted are records or leads, when calculating the maximum Cost Per Acquisition [CPA] thinking about the Lifetime Value or value of a customer for the lifetime of the product, service or upgrade path is crucial in evaluating the true value of a given campaign.

There are brands that have performance marketing campaigns with the concept of “always on” (always valid), those that manage to not only measure the outcome of each dollar they invest, but also create a permanent brand presence and achieve  indirectly the positioning or what you would understand as the mindset of the user. That’s thinking long term!

The brand-building work
The success of such campaigns rests largely on knowledge and attitude that the audience has towards the brand. How to achieve this? Through scheduled performance optimization and user experience enhancement through every step of the funnel. Brand positioning,  is the set of attributes with which the individual associates the target product/service, is the result of communication you do, whatever the medium.

Performance Marketing campaigns are a proposal for valuable content to consumers, giving the user increasing brand recognition and the marketer the methodological analysis of the users response and response time.

Let’s talk about metrics
When measuring conversions, usually attributed to the success of the medium that last sent the user to the site that generated the action we measure. If I do click on a banner of a newspaper, I interact with a brand of computers, and 7 days later recalling that experience decide to buy a netbook searching on Google. The analytics will show and attribute the sale to Google and not the newspaper. This is a problem called conversion attribution. How do you measure what actually triggered the users actions?

Photo by pangalactic gargleblasterI believe that the “last cookie wins” is the least worse of attributing results discovered so far. C3 Metrics is a media tracking system which claims to prevent over payment, corrects Google’s inherent tracking flaw and properly attributes credit beyond the last click. C3 uses what they call an Attribution Gateway. Maybe Engagement Mapping ends up being a proposal that surpasses the last click, as it suggests. It will not be easy to do in a uniform and comparable way among different media, we will know in time if they can implement their Gateway successfully.

custom alerts: identifying the known unknowns

intelligence: identifying the unknown unknowns!

Duplicate Content and Multiple Site Issues

Greg says, “One of the interesting issues in this problem is that Google doesn’t know the first time the content appears. At best, we only know the first page we crawled the content on. It is entirely plausible that we crawl the original content after the copycat.”

Joachim Kupke, Sr. Software Engineer of Google’s Indexing Team reiterated much of what Grothaus said. He also said that Google has a lot of infrastructure for content duplication elimination:

- redirects
- detection of recurrent URL patterns (the ability to ‘learn’ recurrent url patterns to find duplicated content)
- actual contents
- most recently crawled version
- earlier content
- contents minus things that don’t change on a site

Kupke said to avoid dynamic URLs when possible (although Google is “rather good” at eliminating dupes). If all else fails, use the canonical link element. Kupke calls this a “Swiss Army Knife” for duplicate content issues.

Also, do not disallow directives in robots.txt to annotate duplicate content. It makes it harder to detect dupes, and disallowed 404s are a nuisance. There is an exception however, and that is that interstitial login pages may be a good candidate to “robot out,” according to Kupke.

Impressions & Clicks
Joachim repeatedly used the terms ‘impressions’ and ‘clicks’ in the context of a URL in Google’s index. He mentioned that if they see a URL with very few impressions (or none), it will likely take very long to be updated in the index (no surprise there). However, URLs with a lot of impressions and clicks (or on domains that are important and crawled frequently) will be updated quickly.

Infrastructure for Handling Duplicate Content
1. Redirects
2. Detection of recurring URL patterns
3. The contents of a page
4. The link canonical tag (if all else fails)

Historical Record of URLs
Google compares the recently-crawled version with a previously crawled version of the URL

Google + rel=canonical = <3
2 out of 3 times, rel=canonical alters the organic decision

302s work for Canonical Targets
* Because of an internal method for handling the trailing slash on URLs, Google needs to have (and recommends all web developers deploy) a trailing slash on canonical targets and internal links. Without the trailing slash, Google will actually add the slash and update the URL in its index. Now, I’ve found multiple examples of pages where this doesn’t happen, but Joachim was pretty firm that it’s a web problem in general that Google is forced to work around.
* The takeaway is that you should always add the trailing slash to the absolute URL in the canonical target. If you don’t, Google will add it anyway, but adding it proactively should speed up server response times (which may have impact on very large sites).

Google says a common mistake is designating a 404 as canonical, and this is typically caused by unnecessary relative links. So, avoid changing rel=”canonical” designations, and avoid designating permanent redirects as canonical.

Photo by ro_buk [I'm not there]Registering domain names is not as complicated as you might think.

The best thing to do is to find a registrar that is an official Internet registering service and use this to register the domain name. Often web hosting sites will offer registration of your domain name. However, there is some confusion among some of the sites when it comes to ownership of the domain name so the best idea is to register it yourself. Then find a hosting company or your webmaster might host the domain and website as part of their package for you.

Where to Go to Register a Domain Name

Your domain name can be anything that you can think of that describes your site. As long as it is not already taken by someone else, you will be the owner of the name when you register it. There are many choices in the ending of the domain name other than dot COM and those are called TLD’s, ot top level domains, including but not limited to .net, .org, .info, etc…

Find out if your choice is available by visiting http://www.whois.org and search the name you have chosen. Whois is a database that displays information for those searching for domain names. If someone does a search for the one you have chosen, after you register it, this is where the information comes from to show the name is already taken.

For instance, you may do web design for people who do not know how to do their own. The name of your site will be the URL that is entered when people search for a web design service to help them set up their own web site.

Here is a list of sites that host and provide domain names, check em out!

#	Web Host	Website	Price	Setup	Disk Space	Bandwidth	Domain	Money Back	Score	Review
1	Top Rated Host	Visit Site	$3.95	Free	Unlimited	Unlimited	Free 4 Life	Anytime	99%	Best Overall
2		Visit Site	$6.95	Free	Unlimited	Unlimited	Free	30-Day	96%	Top Service
3		Visit Site	$6.95	Free	Unlimited	Unlimited	Free	30-Day	95%	Top Features
4		Visit Site	$6.95	Free	Unlimited	Unlimited	Free	30 Days	94%	Business Host
5		Visit Site	$5.95	Free	Unlimited	Unlimited	Free	90-Day	93%	Low Price
6		Visit Site	$4.95	Free	Unlimited	Unlimited	Free	Anytime	91%	Best Support
7		Visit Site	$6.95	Free	Unlimited	Unlimited	Free	30-Day	90%	Money Back
8		Visit Site	$4.95	Free	Unlimited	Unlimited	Free	30-Day	89%	Green Host
9		Visit Site	$6.95	Free	150GB	150GB	Free	30-Day	87%	High Quotas
10		Visit Site	$8.95	Free	5GB	200GB	Free	30-Day	86%	Good Starter

Photo by Storm CryptI have hundred of websites and domain names in just about every vertical you could imagine, literally. The websites function as a test bed for my SEO and PPC experiments, a source of income in most instances and best of all, insight to many of the sensors search engines use as Ranking Factors for the  search engine result pages (SERP’s).

The key to my insight is running some form of website analytics on every site.  No one site really tells me what is brewing with any given engine, instead the birds eye view helps me see potential changes to the ever shifting ranking landscape.

After spending considerable time sifting through several dozen reports I noticed a change on or around the 8th of October. Albeit some of the changes were minor and insignificant but I have a bunch of steady Eddy sites that perform very consistently for traffic in some very niche keywords and search engine performance.  I have guidelines and flags set to alert me when something goes wonky and sure enough some of the indicators were off, both positive and negative.

On October 28th I posted to my twitter account the following message to see if anyone else saw something change.

Fully two days later the Google update hit across the board. From SEORoundtable.com  October 30, 2009 Google October 2009 Toolbar PageRank Update

“There seems to be a Google Toolbar PageRank update going on right now. We have threads on the topic at WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint Forums and HighRankings Forum. The update seemed to have started sometime yesterday afternoon and many SEOs and webmasters are chatting about it now.

The last PageRank update prior to this one was in June 2009, which may have just been a technical quirk because the one prior to that was just a month before in May.

In any event, like I say every time:
Yes, a Toolbar PageRank update means nothing in terms of your ranking changing anytime soon. The PageRank scores shown in the toolbar are outdated and have zero direct impact on your Google rankings. That doesn’t mean that PageRank has no influence, but the toolbar score does not have any influence. Google shows us one thing, but yet uses another thing.”

Forget the complications of extending out the latin 26 character set used for domains currently to include foreign characters, kanji and the like. How will this effect the browsers when you go from English, read left to right as in the URL example here

to something like Hebrew which is read right to left?

This change will be impacting more than just servers around the world. Entire browser infrastructures will need to have their architecture revamped.

In my experience, Firefox has better Hebrew support than does Internet Explorer, Chrome works surprisingly well but gets caught up in translation. Support for bidirectional languages was implemented in Mozilla 3.0, all the improvements and bug-fixes that have been made since are awesome and significant.

Time will tell how the URL bar is handled. How much of the code is capable of handling UTF-8 let alone UTF-16? A simple way to overcome this in browsers (at least in the url bar) is to color space each character according to character set.

The DNS protocol has always been 8-bit clean. UTF isn’t involved in internationalized domain names either. they start with unicode which then gets normalized and encoded as ascii strings. so テスト(test in Japanese) gets translated to “xn--zckzah” as an IDN. a web browser or mail program can in theory then take a domain name like fubar.xn--zckzah and display it in the appropriate script for a Japanese user.

www.arussiansite.рф should be a joy to try and type in

The Internet’s governing body has approved a new domain name process that will allow for non-Latin characters.

The Fast Track Process will launch on November 16, and will allow countries and territories to apply for domain names in their native language with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). If ICANN approves the application, those countries will then be able to start approving registrations.

“The coming introduction of non-Latin characters represents the biggest technical change to the Internet since it was created four decades ago,” ICANN chairman Peter Dengate Thrush said in a statement. “Right now Internet address endings are limited to Latin characters – A to Z. But the Fast Track Process is the first step in bringing the 100,000 characters of the languages of the world online for domain names.”

Rod Beckstrom, ICANN’s President and CEO, speculated that the move could bring billions of more people online – people who have never used Roman characters in their daily lives, he said.

The effort has been in the works for years, ICANN said, but organizers had to get around technical issues, policy development, and global cooperation.

“Our work on IDNs [internationalized domain names] has gone through numerous drafts, dozens of tests, and an incredible amount of development by volunteers since we started this project,” said Tina Dam, ICANN’s Senior Director for IDNs. “The launch of the Fast Track Process will be an amazing change to make the Internet an even more valuable tool, and for even more people around the globe.”