Bill Slawski's Interview With Eric Enge Options

[swainzy]

While making the rounds of friend's blogs, one of them being Seo by the Sea , I found an interview with Bill Slawski by Eric Enge on searce engine ranking factors. If you are interested, here is the link.

[bragadocchio]

Thanks, Donna.

It was fun talking with Eric, and we covered a range of topics around how search engines might rank and rerank search results.

I've participated in Rand's Search Engine Ranking Factors ratings the last couple of years, and while I think those ended up being useful documents, there are things that the search engines are developing that go outside of looking at the values of things like title elements compared to headings compared to the use of anchor text in links.

One area that is under represented in discussions on SEO is how the user data that the search engines measure play a role in the rankings of pages (and images, and videos, and business listings).

This is even true with paid search. I was really impressed with Andrew Goodman's post at Search Engine Land yesterday on paid search and the things that he wrote about user data and the creation of quality scores for paid search:

The Mysteries of Ad Quality Revealed (Yet Again)
http://searchengineland.com/071106-192138.php

[FP_Guy]

Just listened to the podcast. Let's just say that your voice was better when I talked to you in Philadelphia.

Bill, would you ever consider doing podcasts on your blog?

[earlpearl]

Excellent interview. Its a good thing someone is reviewing patents....and its especially good that Bill is doing it.....because he spends time here, he is helpful and nice (hm...sounds like I'm sucking up to bill ) lol

Taking it a step further is to actually test the patents to see what is being implemented and what isn't. I've done that in one case and am gearing up with some others to do it again. Testing is invaluable.

One of the implications I gathered from this interview is that different patent aspects may be implemented over time. That would require further testing.

Now if various levels of personalized results infiltrate the serps.....man.....that would be tough to test.

Really a terrific interview and an excellent window into where the SE's might be heading.

[bragadocchio]

Just listened to the podcast. Let's just say that your voice was better when I talked to you in Philadelphia.

Bill, would you ever consider doing podcasts on your blog?

Thanks, Michael. Recording over a phone is difficult, and the sound levels kept on changing in that podcast.

I've been thinking of offering some different multimedia, and podcasting and video have come up. I bought a little camcorder last night, and my voice did sound much better on some of the test runs that I did. A friend also bought a nice USB microphone a couple of weeks ago with the idea of doing some podcasts, and I need to give a listen to how that sounds.

Excellent interview. Its a good thing someone is reviewing patents....and its especially good that Bill is doing it.....because he spends time here, he is helpful and nice

Thanks! lol

One of the implications I gathered from this interview is that different patent aspects may be implemented over time.

What we see described on patent filings are just an illustration of what might be developed, and the reality, if developed at all, usually relies upon meeting problems and doing testing to see what works well. Some patents end up being really close to what is developed, like the five Web history patent filings from Google. Others are really difficult to tell. Different parts may be developed before other ones, and some things may be put in place incrementally.

For example, one of Google's patent filings involves setting up kiosks in lots of different places that can give you walking and driving directions or advertising on display ads in places like shopping malls. Image a "you are here map" in the mall that will print out coupons for you on inventory that is presently in one of the stores in the mall, or the ability to tell how long the wait time is on getting a table at one of the mall restaurants?

Search Google Maps At The Gas Pump

The following is from a press release from Google's partner that describes the program:

Consumers can now display maps, find local listings, and even print driving directions and money-saving coupons from Gilbarco’s Encore® dispensers with color screens and the Applause™ media system. The live internet connection means all information is in real time. The Gilbarco® Applause™ media system is the first content management system that uses Google’s world-class open content infrastructure to deliver valuable information at the pump.


Consumers can view maps on the pump’s screen and locate their desired destinations. They can also search Google’s local business listings by category (restaurant, hospital, gift shop, etc.) to find the nearest choices. Once a destination is selected, consumers can also print the driving directions at the pump. Easy-to-read instructions are printed on the receipt printer, making it convenient to take them with them in the car.

Here's a snippet from the patent filing, Generating and/or serving dynamic promotional offers such as coupons and advertisements which I wrote about in a post titled Google's Holy Grail of Shopping:

A promotional offer may be generated by

(i) accepting information concerning at least one of

(A) a search query entered, at a client device, by a user,

(B ) an item or establishment which is the subject of a search result selected by a user using a client device,

(C ) one or more items or establishments which are elements of a shopping session summary provided to a user via a client device,

(ii) determining a promotional offer to serve using at least the accepted search query information, and

(iii) determining terms of the promotional offer using at least one of

(A) a location of the client device,

(B ) a distance from the client device to an establishment associated with the promotional offer, and

(C ) a distance from the client device to an establishment competing with the establishment associated with the promotional offer,

(D) an inventory, at an establishment associated with the promotional offer, of the goods which the promotional offer concerns,

(E) a capacity, at an establishment associated with the promotional offer, to provide the services which the promotional offer concerns,

(F) a level of excess capacity, at an establishment associated with the promotional offer, to provide the services which the promotional offer concerns,

(G) a perishability of goods which the promotional offer concerns, and

(H) a remaining shelf-life of goods which the promotional offer concerns.

For this patent filing to work, Google needed partners willing to get involved with them. It appears that they've found one.


Testing is always a good idea, and sometimes the patents provide some ideas on things to test that they don't even really focus upon too much.

The personalization stuff is hard, but the patents have also provided a lot of information about ideas and assumptions around personalization that are worth thinking about. For example, it might be possible for a search engine to get some people to provide information about themselves and their interests if it gathers that information for them to use in a personal profile at a social networking site, but if the search engine tries to collect the same information in a form because "it will help give you better searches more focused upon your interests," it's less likely that people will.

They also give us some vocabulary words to talk about this stuff. For instance, that type of profile where you provide information can be referred to as an "explicit profile." One where they base an understanding of what your interests are from the pages you view in search history and web history, what alerts you sign up for, which pages you bookmark, etc., is known as an "implicit profile."