To appear on the first page of search results, companies and online marketers will believe and implement any SEO technique or trick they have heard of. Using an SEO technique without any proper analysis have a negative impact on the search rankings of a web page. To maintain current rankings and to prevent being penalized by latest algorithms, webmasters often believe speculations rather than facts. In this video, Matt Cutts – Head of the Google Webspam team, talks about the latest misconception that he would like to put to rest.
Patents don’t always lead to search algorithm changes
According to Matt, the most persistent SEO misconception is that all search-related patents Google or its employees apply for are immediately implemented as search algorithm updates. Matt says once a patent has been filed, it does not mean that Google will use the patented mechanism immediately. Matt gives an example of when a Google employee filed a patent describing a mechanism that records the length of time that a domain was registered and to consider this as a quality signal. This patent generated a lot of speculation but it was not implemented by Google.
Matt adds that when Google files a patent, they only want to patent the mechanism and not always use it. Another employee at Google filed and obtained a patent describing the mechanism of how to detect if web pages were changing their content and web design in response to Google’s search algorithm update. Google could use this mechanism to identify web pages and webmasters who are actively responding to any search algorithm update. This patent caused an uproar with many webmasters speculating that none of their SEO techniques will be useful if Google keeps an eye on them. However, this patented mechanism was never implemented and all the speculations died down in some time.
Matt asserts that patents are basically very good ideas but they don’t indicate any upcoming changes to search algorithms. Watch this video to know more about what Matt thinks of this SEO misconception.