New Google patent: the reasonable surfer and your links
Last month, Google was granted a patent that states that the different links on a linking page have a different effect on the linked pages. How does this affect your website and what do you have to do to secure your rankings?
What is the patent about?
The patent describes that the value of a link seems to be based on the probability that a web surfer would click on the link. Here’s the summary from the patent application:
“Systems and methods consistent with the principles of the invention may provide a reasonable surfer model that indicates that when a surfer accesses a document with a set of links, the surfer will follow some of the links with higher probability than others. This reasonable surfer model reflects the fact that not all of the links associated with a document are equally likely to be followed. [...]
Examples of unlikely followed links may include ‘Terms of Service’ links, banner advertisements, and links unrelated to the document.”
When Google finds links on a web page, it classifies the links. Some links on the indexed page have more value than others.