An Evaluation of the Page Rank System
The term “googling” something has become so much more prevalent in today’s society because it has become synonymous with searching for something on the internet. One of the main factors for this is the way that Google is able to provide the information that you are looking for so easily. It doesn’t matter if you’re looking for something in the financial sector or of cats playing Jenga, Google can find it. One of the ways that they are able to do that is by taking the sites that have some possibly pertinent information and ranking it based on a certain algorithm. This algorithm depends on various factors such as location, time, and quality of the page. The page with the highest rank is showed first. This system, and the concept of a “low quality link” is analyzed by Jill Kocher in the given article.
She explains how the concept of a low-quality page is difficult to define being that pages are so flexible and “quality” is so subjective and can depend on a great deal of variables. On of the biggest factors with Google’s method of ranking pages is the number of links that point to the page. The more links, the higher the page. There are certain circumstances in which a seemingly “low-quality page” can actually have highly pertinent and valid information. It just isn’t seen as high-quality because of a small number of links pointing to the page. This could be the result of a variety of problems, one of which could be that the page is simply new enough that sites haven’t found it yet. This means that, due to the relatively new nature of the page, that it has an extremely low score and will probably not get the traction needed to become known. This is just one of the many situations that Kocher talks about and they all emphasize how the page ranking algorithm lets high-quality pages fall through the cracks. This means that a great deal of viable information is hidden below other “high-quality” sites. The article emphasizes the faults and failures of the system of page ranking and how a new system is needed. She, however, does not offer an alternative that is both reasonable and effective.
This relates to what we’ve talked about in class because we have talked about Google’s Page Ranks system and how it is based primarily on the links. This is, however, perhaps not the best system as it lets quality sites fall through the cracks and they disappear in the masses of information and links that Google provides. A new system that analyzes the actual data that is presented is necessary and one that does not rely so heavily on the number of links. This, however, is easier said than done due to the flexible nature of searching and the uncountable number of possible searches that people can make. The author maintains that the only way to determine site quality but this proposition is completely infeasible. A new system should be used, based more heavily on information and quality of the site, rather than being based on the number of links pointing to the page. Of course, Google does take other factors into account but these factors should carry more weight in the end and there should be a larger variety of factors.
References:
http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/73794-SEO-How-to-Identify-Low-Quality-Links