A search algorithm

One sector commentator who attempted to put himself in the mind of a search engineer came up with some surprising results when it came to testing his algorithm theory.

Writing on the online pages of the SEOmoz blog, Will Critchlow used poker-related terms to test his theory and predicted that the most generic term - poker - would remain static when it came to web rankings.

However, in fact the results changed "almost entirely" over the course of the first three consecutive days

To more effectively test his hypotheses using web analytics, Mr Critchlow claimed that he would need to see the referral data for all the top results.

In addition, he would have to take into account the effect of spam which could affect web rankings and finally he noted that fresh news stories would also have shaped the results.

Meanwhile, in an earlier SEOmoz blog, Sarah Bird reported that a US travel insurance comparison firm had been fined $4.8 million (£3.08 million) for generating fake leads on a competitor website.

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