0 Google's Mission

I’ve often read from disgruntled webmasters, that Google owes them some thing because without them Google would have nothing to provide search results for. Often this comes right after Google makes some change that lowers their site in the SERPS.
Personally I find this funny. I am quite sure that if all my websites ceased to be available to Google or any other search engine, the search engines would not pack up and go out of business. There will be at least a hundred more sites to take my place.


That is not as true with me as a searcher. Search engines make their money based on the number of people performing searches, therefore they put their effort toward making the searchers happy, not the website owners. This is an important distinction, one that anyone doing SEO needs to think about.



Google’s responsibility is to provide the most relevant results for each search. This makes the searcher happy and therefore they come back again. As a website owner our goal should be to provide fresh unique content that will be of the most use to the person making the search. This patent and each one previous to it provide a guide for us to be able to see how Google attempts to accomplish this mission.
Bear in mind that Google claims that there is more than 100 factors involved in deciding which web pages to add into the SERPS. It is unlikely that any single improvement in your website will make a major difference in it’s ranking. However any one of these points may be the deciding factor that will rate you just a little higher.