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Looking at the results in Google Blog Search, which I believe is still in beta (like all their other app’s besides their core search product), you can glean some insight into how sites are ranked. Some of the criteria are listed below along with links to the patent submitted by Google. There are a total of 9 that I indicated here as well as other resources you can review that also play a par, if anyone has anymore insight and adept at reading legalese, let me know.

Looking at the list, it seem appropriate to put the 9 indicators in to 2 categories, the first being negative points to your blog, second positive points to your blog and finally other factors.

Negative Indicators:

1. Content of the posts: If the feed content in your blog is different than the actual content in your blog, this is a negative indicator according to Google patent expressly states, “Spammers may put one version of content into a feed to improve their rankings in search results, while putting a different version on their blog. This mismatch can, therefore, be a negative indicator of the quality of the document.”
2. Frequency of new posts: According to this snippet from the patent, you can get some insight into how the time-stamp feature in blogs can cause a negative indicator. This only applies if you put out posts in regular intervals (which some legitimate blogs do), but remember, this is only one factor, and who knows how much weight it carries. According to the Google Patent, “Spammers often generate new posts in spurts or at predictable intervals. Both behaviors are correlated with malicious intent and can be used to identify possible spammers…”
3. Words/Phrases used in posts: Take a look at this snippet and consider the impact of what you discuss in your posts, or allow user generated content to be published. From Google Patent, “For example, from a collection of blog documents and feeds that evaluations rate as spam, a list of words and phrases (defined by Google) that appear frequently in spam may be extracted. If a blog document contains a high percentage of words or phrases from the list, this can be a negative indicator…”
4. Links to blog posts: Basically, your outbound links count as well. From Googles Patent, “In some cases, a high percentage of all links from the posts of from the blog document all point to either a single web page, or to a single external site. If the number of links to any single external site exceeds the threshold (according to Google), this can be a negative indicator of quality of the blog document.”
5. Size of posts: You should mix up the sizes of your blog posts. Google is using this to get rid of automatic post generators. According to Google, “Many automated post generators create numerous posts of identical or very similiar length…”

Positive Indicators:

1. Pagerank of the blog: Inherit your page rank from your site. According to Google, “A high page rank is an indicator of high quality and, thus, can be applied to blog posts as a positive indicator of the quality of the blog…”
2. References to blog by outside sources: According to Google, “For example, content of emails or chat transcripts can contain URL’s of blog posts. Email or chat room discussions that include blog URL’s is a positive indicator…” This is a good reason to bump up efforts for subscriptions to your blog.
3. Tagging: This reference works on the principle of tags, and how users tag your blog posts. According to Google, “Some existing sites allow users to add “tags” to a blog post. This is an indication that the individual has evaluated the post and appropriately described it’s content…”
4. Blorolls: Google likes good links on your blogroll and your link in other high quality blogrolls. From Googles Patent, “Blogrolls are a dense collection of links to external sites in which the author/blog owner is interested. A blogroll link to a blog is an indicator or popularity of that blog page…Aggregated blogroll links to a blog can be a positive indicator…

Other Considerations:

Google Blog Search also uses a quality score to determine the appearance of blogs in their results. You can read more about the Google Quality Score Patent here.

You also have to consider the current status of your domain (strength), and configurations of your blog.

If anyone has any other ideas, feel free to leave a comment, tips, etc.

Technorati Tags: google blog search, google blog search tips, google optimization

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