• HuoMah, Wednesday, August 12, 2009 4:45 PM

Dave Harry points to a Microsoft patent that caught his attention, Forum Mining for Suspicious Link Spam Sites Detection,. The patent aims to "conveniently and efficiently exchange link trade information."

Harry describes why Microsoft would want the patent, how it might influence site rankings in queries on search engines, and what it means to the SEO industry. The patent details ways to protect rank, application of penalties for suspect URLs, methods to analyze link profiles to possibly find other reciprocal manipulations, and more. Harry also crafted and made available a Google Custom Search Engine to search popular SEO forums for links.

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