New Google Natural Search Patent to Penalise Duplicate Content

Google blogger Matt Cutts has filed a patent on behalf of the search engine that could affect the way it ranks search results.

ZDNet writers have speculated that the patent relating to 'Document Scoring Based on Document Inception Date' could have significant implications for where websites are listed on Google.

The abstract of the patent reads: "A system may determine a document inception date associated with a document, generate a score for the document based, at least in part, on the document inception date, and rank the document with regard to at least one other document based, at least in part, on the score."

This implies, as ZDNet's Russell Shaw notes, that Google could more accurately rank documents according to which were published first.

"I've often felt that published date should have more prominence in determining these writings," he said.

Such a move would give more prominence to those websites with newsfeeds that are regularly updated, as their pages will remain fresher.

“Sites with slower crawl rates could be adversely affected by this new document scoring system. Even if a site produces original content, with a slow crawl rate larger sites would be able to steal content and be credited as the source” Said James Helliwell from Fires Spin Media. “A good way to counter this potential duplicate content penalty would be to build links to new content pages from high ranking sites” he continued.

Other factors considered when compiling 'history data' could include:
Content updates, query analysis, traffic, user behaviour, domain-related information and user-maintained data.

Google is notoriously secretive about the way it organises its search results. Its PageRank system organises web pages according to how important they are deemed to be based on various criteria.

The company describes the process thus: "In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B.

"But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyses the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves 'important' weigh more heavily and help to make other pages 'important'."