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1 year = 7 dog years
1 year = 100 Internet years
The internet moves insanely fast and Google is starting to show a hint of wrinkles. The Google index is where billions of web pages are stored and categorized.
The index is then called upon to deliver the results for a particular search query — when their patented algorithm feels it is relevant and useful to the searcher.
As the Internet continues to age, so to does the pages and more importantly THE INFORMATION on those pages and in the Google index.
I was recently hunting around on the Internet for some reviews on high end camcorders. I was on google.com typing in queries like:
‘digital camcorder reviews’
‘canon gl2 camcorder review’
Many of the search results I found in the Google search results were deceiving. It appeared that I had found exactly what I was looking for — I was thrilled to find such useful information.
Then —- I looked at the date that the blog post or article was written.
Google is faced with a terrible problem as the information on the web and in its index continues to age. How should they fix this problem?
The search engine can’t automatically filter out older results without considering the topic. After all, some information remains useful for longer than others.
For instance, an article that details a speach that Abraham Lincoln gave in 1865 will remain relevant and useful for decades. On the other hand, a review of the iPhone will become obsolete over the course of approximately one year.
Is this the review that you would want to read when considering purchasing an iPhone in 2009? This was found in the top 10 (first page) of search results on the keyword ‘iphone review’. The iPhone 3G was not released yet and today we are all anticipating the release of the 3rd generation iPhone.
The problem lies in the fact that Google’s search algorithm is heavily based on the number and quality of links that are pointing at a web page. It takes time for an article or blog post to build up the links necessary to outrank the older articles.
Consider this article that was found in the #2 position on the keyword ‘internet advertising regulation.’
This is a trustworthy result as it has been online for nearly 10 years. However, the article does not come close to reflecting the current regulatory landscape on the Internet.
This article has had 10 years to build up trust in the Google search engine, while a fresh article published this month or even this year will have difficulty outranking this venerable article with the current Google algorithm.
Google will have to find ways to deal with this problem in the future or a competitor will. As the days, months and years tick by the problem will only get larger and larger as millions of new web pages are added to the internet each day and billions of pages get old and outdated.
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