The Google PageRank Patent has been updated the other day, the patent is titled Method for node ranking in a linked database. The abstract reads;
A method assigns importance ranks to nodes in a linked database, such as any database of documents containing citations, the world wide web or any other hypermedia database. The rank assigned to a document is calculated from the ranks of documents citing it. In addition, the rank of a document is calculated from a constant representing the probability that a browser through the database will randomly jump to the document. The method is particularly useful in enhancing the performance of search engine results for hypermedia databases, such as the world wide web, whose documents have a large variation in quality.
So what was changed? Bill Slawski says four things, but nothing substantial to the algorithm itself.
1. The references section was updated in this patent to include documents that are listed in the filing granted on September 28, 2004.2. The abstract section remains the same in the new document, but the claims section was reduced in length, and appears to now cover aspects of both previous patent filings.
3. There are some minor looking changes in the “Detailed Descriptions” section between the version granted in 2001, and the one granted today.
4. The main changes appears in the summary section of the document. In the two previous documents, there were many passages that were repeated, but there were also differences. I’ve copied the areas of that section below where the three differ:
Continue reading the differences at SEO By the Sea.
Also Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
