The Google Freshness Factor - What Happens When Documents Are Too New

The Google Freshness Factor - What Happens When Documents Are Too New

In a section of one of their patent filings, Google states, “A significant change over time in the set of topics associated with a document may indicate that the document has changed owners and previous document indicators, such as score, anchor text, etc., are no longer reliable.

“Similarly, a spike in the number of topics could indicate spam. For example, if a particular document is associated with a set of one or more topics over what may be considered a 'stable' period of time and then a (sudden) spike occurs in the number of topics associated with the document, this may be an indication that the document has been taken over as a 'doorway' document.

“Another indication may include the sudden disappearance of the original topics associated with the document. If one or more of these situations are detected, then [Google] may reduce the relative score of such documents and/or the links, anchor text, or other data associated the document.”

I think what Google is attempting to establish here is reliability, and trustworthiness. While freshness may play a part in it, there is far more at stake here than simply how recent the content is, or even where the content originated. In my opinion, it’s not really about freshness; it’s always been about inbound links.


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