Google's Patents as well as SEO Ranking Factors: Connecting the Dots

Jan 10, 2023
Google patents SEO

Methodology

We will also point out 11 major aspects which SEO as well as digital marketing need to pay close attention to in 2020.

  1.    Better Content Relevance and Intent
  2.    Go Multilingual in 2019
  3.    Apple = Apps, but Google is Google and Apps
  4.    Prominence on Local-Based Search
  5.    Enhance Online Communities and Increase User Reviews for Local Search
  6.    Speech Recognition the Future of Searching Future
  7.    Image Optimization and Disambiguation
  8.    Retake of Ranking Parameters
  9.    Monitoring Events in videos and ads
  10.    search results that are custom-made for you and faster access
  11.    Avoid Using Copyrighted or Third-Party Multimedia Content

1. Sharper Content Relevance and Intent

If you've been working with SEO for a while, you may already be aware of the classic page ranking algorithm that the founders of Google created.

Google PageRank algorithm
Google PageRank algorithm

PageRank Algorithm

Many of us know of the fact that just a fraction part of PageRank algorithm is still in use to rank websites currently. PR algorithm has been misused in the SEO community, and Google recognized that it must be constantly evolving to offer pertinent rankings and relevant content to users. However, Google may still be using the PageRank algorithm in its own internal processes.

Following the discovery of widespread misuse in the PageRank algorithm Google realized the importance of using the algorithm to evaluate the relevance of content as the primary ranking factor. Since then, Google has been investing in a substantial amount of time developing technology that could draw a relevant correlation between pages concerning the context.

In terms of our experience goes, we've come across sites that produce content using tightly knit topics, and are leading in the search results for key search terms. This is the reason why the focus on content clustering is a factor.

Google's patent for content clustering provides a similar signal. It mainly examines the topic, and creates a distance matrix of subtopics that are related to the primary topic. The closer subtopics are in relation to the topic at hand and the higher chance it has to be included in search results.

The emphasis on clustering is very common. This is so significant that HubSpot's marketing software has a correlation ratio for a specific subtopic with respect to the topic in question.

As you might know, HubSpot lets its customers make material on three different levels. If you are creating an article on the third stage, it provides the correlation coefficient and allows you to see how closely the topics would be connected.

The majority of users who implemented HubSpot's technique have acknowledged that their traffic and queries have increased when they followed the process of creating content, which is just a type of clustering content.

Topic clusters
Topic clusters (Image Source: HubSpot)

It is the concept behind a cluster is a part of the HubSpot methodology. HubSpot's software for marketing assigns an overall correlation score to all subtopics developed under the main theme or pillar.

This patent says that Google is seeking content creators to build content in clusters that have high correlation to further analyse using engagement metrics in order to give relevant rankings.

Another Google patent that is titled questions which answer questions to create a knowledge base that appears to complement or aid in the development of content clusters. Google has also been empowering contextual relevance by amalgamating it with personalization. One of the examples is the patent application for the Dynamic Summary Generator that is focused on the creation of different summaries of information that pertain to the user who is obtained via cookies, accounts or even devices.

Additionally, the an emphasis on the relevance of content to context is also evident in one Google's patents that is built around promoting advertisements by referring to context. It specifically addresses promotions on web pages, suggesting a closer connection and contextual relevance of the content.

What Should SEOs Do?

Focus on keyword as well as content mapping and create pertinent content. This will be effective both ways i.e. on SERPs and helping publishers earn more from ads.

2. Go Multilingual in 2020

Search results that are multilingual are getting the most attention. Since the application-based world gained popularity, we've seen both Google and Apple put more focus on multilingual applications and search.

While Apple is limited to apps, Google's business model that is based on the search engine, draws a lot from websites that have multiple languages. At present over 50% of the population in the world does not have internet. With respect to demographics the majority of these are likely to speak their own language, not English.

Internet users per 100 inhabitants
Internet users per 100 residents (Image Source: International Telecommunications Union)

In the pursuit of that goal, Google has come out with numerous patents that would give more importance to sites that are multilingual.

Crowdsource Human Translation

Google was given a patenton a web technology that enables the developer of any website to create the "opt-in" option for human translation.

Although we've been getting machine-based translation on our browsers, the apparent lack of quality of the translations is well-known. This is the reason Google has begun investing in technologies that would include human-based translation to provide a more significant and reliable experience.

3. Apple = Apps, but Google = Google + Apps

Since the application-driven experience became mainstream thanks to the iPhone The landscape of search has been transformed dramatically. Mobile usage increased and that led to an increase in demand for mobile apps along with mobile websites.

In the past, we've seen confusion between choosing a mobile website or creating a mobile application. A lot of people created apps rather than an online mobile site and then waited for downloads in the app store which never was the case.

Suddenly, the app store filled with thousands of apps realized a giant problem: app discovery.

Discovery problem
Problem with discovery (Image Source: Nielsen)

The app discovery issue has been a lingering problem for Apple as well as Google for quite a while, and Google has taken the lead to solve that issue and provides contextual information through Google search and the search function for apps.

The patents granted to Google emphasize on placing apps in the app store based on the social mention of these apps. It is stated that several indicators will be analysed via social media websites, before a score is churned out to determine the app's ranking.

What are SEO's responsibilities?

Because the patent is with Google and Google, it is possible that results to be greater on the play store as opposed to the Apple App store.

For SEOs, it's important to concentrate on the influencers and social media activities by 2020, especially if you believe that the app(s) augment, is an integral part of the business model you have.

4. The importance of location-based search is evident

We've seen that Google is focused on providing search results that are contextual by content clustering, this follows a patent for disambiguating input, based on context, takes the idea to a whole new level.

In accordance with the patent, ambiguous user queries can be clarified with regard to the current location of the device used by the user the speed that the user is moving (traveling in a car and so on. ) and the type of gadget (mobile and desktop) along with other aspects.

What Are Ambiguous Queries?

Ambiguous queries are nothing but queries that do not generally contain a specific search purpose. One of the main reasons why most marketers opt after long tail search queries is that they possess a clearly defined search intent and buying intention which results in a high CPC and.

Disambiguation
Disambiguation with respect to location, movement or other elements. (Image source: FRESHPatents)

However, Google gets a lot of queries which can appear broad in relation to the context and ambiguous as far as the intent is related. The main reason behind such queries is the unqualified user who may be ignorant of the meaning of their search.

Therefore, Google will not only aid them in understanding the context, but will also give users with contextual results, even when the queries are not that simplified.

What Should SEOs Do?

Therefore, if you're an establishment that sells sushi along an area that is crowded and you want to get your address on Google maps; use "sushi" within your restaurant's name or subtext and attract certain reviews on Google or any other review websites. We'll move on to the following topic: user reviews.

As well as disambiguating query results, Google has come up with an additional patent to establish entity attributes derived from the review of users..

The patent states that Google will likely concentrate on obtaining results from a set of metadata that includes the combination of an algorithm as well as hardware and computer-readable media that can be used to study customer reviews, and later link the results with the products or website identified by the organization.

This implies this implies that Google is focused on determining the authentic user reviews which give a reliable and truthful analysis of any business. This is suitable for websites that permit Google to gather its data from the servers of their.

Dumping negative reviews is a common practice. Apart from Google many other firms are fighting this same menace that depends on reviews to qualify the customers and drive sales. Amazon has been tearing them down for some time now.

Amazon remove negative reviews
Amazon take down negative reviews (Image Source: AMZ Tracker)

Another patent is titled the reputation and engagement method for online community management works on similar lines of validating and attracting better user-generated information - yet another attempt to improve the knowledge graph.

The patent seeks to determine the genuine users and gives the users a value based on their contribution in the online community. The value is calculated on a number of factors across a number of topics. If you are searching for an appropriate search, these results, pages or links are given the top priority.

A different method of achieving this can be achieved through the use of enhanced search questions. In one of the patents that are cited as providing the results of searches using augmented queries It is stated that the results from the search engine are directly connected with one of the entities (real individuals). As Google plus is out from the picture, we can expect Google to rely a lot on LinkedIn to do this.

SEOs: What should they do?

If you're dealing with mobile apps, become a thought-leader on the forums. If you're dealing with ecommerce Try to be an expert in Amazon Seller forum. Amazon Seller forum and likewise. Include your technology team into marketing for more effective results.

In regard to reviews, understand that it's becoming a crucial aspect of local SEO in the coming time. Hence, if you're looking at black hat SEO with reviews, then you need to think about reconsidering your choice.

6. Speech Recognition - The Future of Search Mode in the Future

We are all aware that Google has been developing numerous technologies in the field of voice recognition. Furthermore, what's the reason, with 320 million people looking for information using voice search and it is a great deal of sense to invest in this arena.

The numbers are not limited to Google alone. For the record, it is important to note that over 4 millions Amazon Echo products are being distributed every holiday season. It's quite a lot. Actually, as per Gartner, the world's leading research organization, nearly 50 percent of all requests will be conducted using voice by 2020.

In looking at patent, we can see the idea that Google intends to detect keywords within the long lines of speech. What do they mean?

Machine learning software is currently taking care of a wide range of issues inside the Google algorithm. Due to the massive amount of metadata that Google collects, the entire procedure of searching and using the content is going to be extremely easy. This is precisely what Google hopes to achieve by using speech.

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Voice search with Siri
Siri Voice Search Siri

On the webpage to Siri You can easily understand that these companies (including Google) want the interface between humans and machines to be extraordinarily user-friendly to allow voice search to become mainstream.

With all these voice assistants, companies, be it Amazon, Apple or Google really want us to converse with the voice services as if they were humans. But, in order for Google to give pertinent results, it will require certain data elements like keywords in order to determine the context and deliver exact results. This is what is the Google patent is trying to accomplish.

Amazon Echo
Amazon Echo (Image source: Amazon)

What should SEOs do?

Since a lot of transactional queries are naturally attracted to Amazon as they are selling many Echos, Google would want to nail this down over the next two years. Hence, SEO managers must focus on improving their websites from the perspective of voice searchin 2020.

7. Image Optimization and Disambiguation

Google has applied for the patent on contextually disambiguating queriesin which users can directly ask the search service to give him information about an image they are at present viewing on their devicein real time.

Contextually disambiguating queries
Contextually disambiguating questions (Image Source: FRESHPatent)

This will create contextually disambiguating requests where the search tool will dial the repository of sub-images before giving the user a voice message - informing the user about currently viewing objects and what the objects really.

There is a possibility that an enhanced layer of functionality could cover the screen to give an easy way to access details of the object which is being observed. This is because the current Android 8 and 9 are built heavily upon this.

Picture in picture feature in Android one
The feature Picture-in-Picture is available is available in Android one ( Computerworld)

Concerning visual accuracy and UX are concerned, Google already has their established material design concept that supports it.

The Scope of the Distributed Image Search Patent

Another patent affirms Google's commitment to search engine recognition as well as image recognition. In a patent entitled as the distributed search, Google engineers give an attractive diagram of. The patent is based on the ability to identify and return image subject matter that has the same shapes and colors, as the image's subject being search.

The key reason Google emphasizes this point is that images are a major factor in search queries.

If, for instance, you want to explain the latest dress you have to your friend, you better pull out a picture and demonstrate it instead of explaining how it looks. It is possible that you know the kind by the name but your friend may not. These images provide quick insight and help users to get to ZMOT ZMOT much faster.

The primary goal here is to help people reach an accurate and more precise image or search results based on the image they have put in their search. So, for instance, if you search for a picture of a shirt of the same color, Google will provide similar pictures and also a hyperlink to the respective web page it caches the image.

Distributed image search
Search for images distributed (Image source: FRESHPatents)

According to Neil Patel, more than 10 percent of Google searches are now being driven via images.google.com. This is an enormous number and a result that has turned into an important ranking factor too.

What should SEOs do?

It is an excellent resource for SEO managers who are working with an ecommerce website. Since Google integrates machine learning in order to find the best images, image histograms are used to determine if there is the best image.

8. Retake of Rating Parameters

Google was recently awarded patents for the way to rank documents across large datasets. It's an effective answer to the problem of spam which Google is combating for years.

As we all know, the number of backlinks one has is one of the permanent determinants of the SERPs. Over the years this has been abused by Black Hat SEO, which this patent aims to solve.

What Does This Technology Work?

The patent is centered around the idea that obtaining an individual backlink isn't enough. Hence, what it does is monitors the user behavior in relation to the link's navigation over several days and derives conclusions. It outlines the use of a variety of signals in order to achieve this.

Once the behaviour of the link is ascertained, then the link will be assigned an amount that is then transferred to the webpage that it is linking to.

This is especially useful with respect to links that appear on social media websites. Another example is where the graph of knowledge is being confirmed from large data sets produced by users.

What are SEO Managers' Roles?

Make sure you focus on the point, creating tightly interconnected content clusters. This is going to keep you out of the results of searches that are not relevant, and avoid unwanted backlinks that are likely to result in less navigational activity, as mentioned in the patent.

You should also go for a targeted outreach so that your hyperlinks appearing on different websites are viewed by people, bringing the natural visitors to your website.

It is also important to be cautious when doing content syndication. Think about the concept of clustering content for high correlation and plan your syndication strategy in line with this.

9. Monitoring Events in Videos, and ads-Placement

Videos on YouTube, or embedded videos on pages have become a significant media asset for a vast number of companies. As we are in the middle of the tsunami of videos It isn't enough to count just the number of people who have viewed the video. One has to make sense of user-generated actions which occur within videos through quantifying the information that Google is already doing.

The patent that tracks users' activities and providing Web analytics concentrates on collecting all user activities and the return of this data to the servers to give significance to the videos and also place contextual ads.

Events on a YouTube video
Videos on YouTube that show events

Embedded videos have additional user actions such as "watch further", "share", "subtitle switched on and off" as well as "related videos".

Certain Factors Google Wants to Collect Data On:

  1. The number of times that people have clicked on the video
  2. The average duration of the video watched by the users
  3. Which part of the video timeline do people prefer to go?
  4. Are they watching or just skipping over the ads?
  5. Do they watch it using subtitles, etc. ?
YouTube seek
YouTube search

Google has already implemented skipping to a time on the search bar. Many people anticipate when they will hit the seek bar to display the specific portion of the content they want and Google helps users to do this.

When taken together with other metadata can provide strong signals about the engagement factor of the video and the contextual relationship to web content they are paired with.

An additional patent that tracks objects inside media content has also been found. It analyzes the objects within the media with the help of machine learning. Then it finds out the context of searches.

Search signals could be frame pauses in a video, replaying a specific portion of the timeline of the multimedia and on. This is taken further with a different patent that performs face recognition and tracking of logos and labels,. that appear in videos and then relate those to the queries.

SEOs: What Do We Need to Know?

SEO managers should understand the importance of videos as a factor in ranking that is expected to rise in 2020. While making more videos that are engaging those you are targeting is an excellent idea however, it comes at costs. For large companies with deep pockets, this is undoubtedly an area they should be focusing on.

Smaller companies need to create highly engaging videos with a lower budget or use videos from other users. If they decide to do this, SEO managers must dedicate more time to finding videos and which ones will be compatible with their brand's video content.

Based on our experiences, as far as it can tell, we would recommend using videos to be an extension of content or a connecting a block of content to the overall idea.

10. Custom-designed search results and faster Access

It is in use to a large extent, and search results will be based on the user's preferences. Patents that describe "serving content that is based on engagement" utilizes physical resources that cache and study the previous interactions of users with the website and its various elements.

The data is analysed and then stored. The next time a user seeks similar or similar queries, certain sites could be more prominent than other sites.

If you'd like to test this out, search for a query that you typically search for and search the same query in the incognito mode of Google. The results may differ. The sites that you interacted with before will come at the top than the ones with which you've never interacted or opened. However, in incognito mode, you will not notice this preference.

Chrome incognito mode
Chrome incognito mode

Incognito mode does not consider your past browsing history.

It is further enhanced with a patent on a faster process to download pre-rendered information for search results. If, for instance, you've searched for various keywords on a regular basis and the result page for your search will be displayed without delay because the preferred search terms will be pre-rendered for individual users.

What should SEO managers do?

Most important is to earn at least one contact with each of the prospective customers who could visit your website. In order to achieve this it is easy to do so. One of the most effective methods is to concentrate on paid marketing.

Create web pages with the target keyword and then create PPC or Facebook campaigns for a large amount of people to click on. And, when they search something similar the site could show up a few places ahead of the competitor.

However you must avoid getting moderate or insignificant traffic to the site. If you're trying to get higher rankings but you do not want to appear to be viewed as unimportant by Google while at the same time.

11. Avoid Using Copyrighted or Third-Party Multimedia Content

A lot of content stealing is done in the form of texts, which is easily identifiable. But what happens when somebody steals a portion of your audio or video or any form of media content? What can you do to detect this? It's true, Google seems to be tightening the grip it has on that.

Copyrighted music on YouTube

Recognizing and identifying music that is copyrighted in YouTube is a practice that has been in use since a long time. But, Google is working hard on the rights of those who actually created the video content today. Google is urging all kinds of users to produce multimedia content. Then, stealing the content will not be tolerated.

A number of Google patents entitled define reference content that is based on third party content expose a technique that identifies copyrighted or the use of third-party content by users in their web content. Also, Google wants to reward the owner who created the content, while penalizing the copyrighted.

What should SEOs do?

Do not use third-party multimedia such as copyrighted music or parts of video content that belong to a record label, etc. Buy stock videos and other media content, or build the repository of free pictures. Get a graphic designer in the studio creating iterations that blend Free stock photos with vectors, images and icons. You can also sign up to receive the free stock music. It is also possible to contact the artists on SoundCloud to request permission to incorporate their music in your own content. Most of them will need exposure and probably won't turn down your offer.

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Summary

Analyzing these patents in a thematic way suggests that Google is focusing a lot in making it and its ecosystem more beneficial for local companies. It is achievable through tweaking the knowledge graph by aggregating contextual accuracy of reviews as well as location-based information, and the validation of a few of these points of data using social media. Google has already set the course on its way.

We believe that local SEO is expected to return in late 2020 with an emphasis on voice, location videos, reviews as well as social media. Though a variety of SEO deliverables are likely to appear in the year 2020, the long-term inclination of SEO administrators should include an unwavering focus on context relevancy for the best results in terms of return on investment.

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