Social Media and Social Search

Sometimes, I run across a patent that provides details on things that Google might do, but only hints at whether or not it might actually be implemented. A few years back in 2007, I wrote about a Google patent for Agent Rank, which described reputation scores for authors (to be used as an alternative to … Read more Is An Improved Version of Agent Rank Returning to Google?

The “Buy” Button is coming to Google shopping Results. Recode reported that Google Confirms “Buy Button” Is Coming. The Moz White Board Friday this week had Rand Fishkin asking, and answering the question, Is Brand a Google Ranking Factor? I left a comment at Moz, part of which, after some research, I’d like to retract … Read more Brands Entities at Google; Crowdsourcing their Identity in a Social Network

A couple of years ago, Google published a patent that described how the search engine might rank user-generated content in something like Google Plus. I wrote about that in the post, How Google Might Rank User Generated Web Content in Google + and Other Social Networks. The patent described in that post seemed like a … Read more How Google may Rank Users in Streams

Recently, Google announced that they would be ranking pages higher in search results when those pages use a secure protocol of https. The Google Webmaster Central blog told us so through Google Webmaster Trends Analysts Zineb Ait Bahajji and Gary Illyes, in HTTPS as a ranking signal. The use of https doesn’t necessarily make a … Read more What Ranking Signal is Better, HTTPS or FOAF markup, when Searcher and Searched Author are Connected?