Google 在 7/30 時發布了他們的一項專利 – 將發送垃圾信作為排名的因素之一。Google 申請了這項專利並不代表這件事一定會在搜尋引擎上採用它,但是我們可以知道 Google 仍然在思考如何更進一步的懲罰垃圾信發送者 – 不管你是自己發,還是透過別人的 IP 發。
過去我們很難把發垃圾信和網站排名聯想在一起過,更不可能認為當你用電子報向使用者宣傳新功能、產品時,你的網站排名有可能同時受到影響。然而隨著這個專利的發佈,我們可以稍微看見 Google 所劃的未來是什麼樣子。
專利內容
先從他的摘要看起:
“A system and method is disclosed for determining a reliability of an online vendor. One or more groups of undesirable emails (for example, spam) are analyzed to determine a prevalence of a known vendor. A reliability indicator may be determined for the vendor based on the identified prevalence of the vendor in the emails. The reliability indicator may then be provided to a remote application for use in assessing the reliability of the vendor.”
Google 申請的這項專利讓他們能夠以電子郵件的訊號(例如垃圾信)來決定一個 vendor 的可靠性,而一旦這項專利被實際應用到網站排名上,這對許多人可能會造成一定程度的影響。以下是專利流程圖:
“For one aspect, one signal for estimating the reliability of a vendor (For example, an online retailer) may be based on the amount of spam email received from the vendor.”
Google 將會根據一個 vendor 所寄出的垃圾信數量,來判斷一個 vendor 的可靠性。相對的,一個可靠且誠實的 vendor 會傾向較少的垃圾信。
然而,如果這件事情單單只是透過過濾器找出垃圾郵件,並不會影響到垃圾郵件發送者的行為。到底 Google 打算怎麼做呢?
“On detecting a vendor characteristic, the email may be associated with the vendor associated with the characteristic. Vendor characteristics may include attributes (for example, at least a portion of an electronic address, URL, domain name or a partial domain name, or the like); one or more terms (for example, a name or partial name of a vendor); an image or the like, associated with one or more known vendors, or that are known to exist in emails or websites associated with the one or more known vendors.”