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Google *was* a links driven search engine.

But now human user data is being used to deliver results right beneath our noses.
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from willneu 1389 Days ago #
Votes: 0

Meh nice article, but a load of hype and rubbish really! Google will never be a human driven algorithm primarily, while it might one day take human activity into account it will only ever be a minor part of the algorithm, falling back to the core link driven algorithm in the end as a base for everything.

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from iBrian 1389 Days ago #
Votes: 0

I think the big pointer is that Google are already using human user data to drive sitelinks, and that Google Universal allows Google to use human user data directly for selecting how news, video, and other media is injected into search results.The result - human driven data that dilutes the impact of link driven results.Danny Sullivan actually ran a presentation at SES in 2004 about how Google could push down "traditional search" results with what became Google Universal - I’m not sure he suggested it as human user driven, but certainly the potential is there.Add the employees of the search quality team to apply an editorial process to the actual link driven search results returned, and the links aspect of ranking becomes further diminished.2c.

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from Lyndon 1389 Days ago #
Votes: 0

Great article Brian.

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from SpostareDuro 1389 Days ago #
Votes: 0

nice one.

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from willneu 1389 Days ago #
Votes: 0

Even if Google move to user driven results the issue will still remain, small niches will still be dominated by the big guns with bigger pockets. And i’d even go as far as saying for smaller niches the issue would simply be worse, blackhat spam would be much easier for clients with big pockets with I can only assume quicker results seen. Just because Google may be "adding" results by implementing sitelinks and some universal search to the mix of the results. The base search results I believe will stick with a link based algorithm, I can only assume it is easier for the search engines to indentify spammy websites using links to boost rankings and for those to be manually reviewed. Than it is to indentify websites spamming "clicks" to websites via clever even spread of SE clicks to several websites but mainly sticking with one in particular to boost its rankings.Just my thoughts, but I cant see human input taking a huge input on search results any time in the near future.

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from SlightlyShadySEO 1389 Days ago #
Votes: 0

@willenu: Google is very much becoming more and more human, relying on manual reports far more frequently then in the past..

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from nsmseo 1389 Days ago #
Votes: 0

Excellent article, expertly delivered.

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from willneu 1388 Days ago #
Votes: 0

@SlightyShadySEO - Just because websites getting reported, and then a manual reviewer comes along with the ban stick doesn’t mean results are not link based....http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=car+insurance&meta=&btnG=Google+Search - Notice our friend ranking #1? Good ole Money Expert have gone from nowhere -> position 1 with a cloaked page and a couple hundred thousand dodgy links in under 2 weeks.

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