In the previous article, we discussed how we believe that Google has deployed the Hilltop algo in its ‘Florida’ algo update. As usual, Google has been silent about the algo update so our analysis is based on research and experiments.

Why need a new algo?

While the PR algo did its job well all these years, there is a basic flaw in the PR system and Google knew about this. The PageRank (PR) system allocates an absolute ‘value of importance’ to a web page based on the number and quality of sites that link to it.

However, ‘PR value’ is not specific to search terms and therefore a high-PR web page that even contained a passing reference to an off-topic keyword phrase, often got a high ranking for that phrase. Krishna Bharat from California realized the flaw in this PR-based ranking system and came up with an algorithm he called ‘Hilltop’ in the year 1999-2000. He filed for the Hilltop patent in Jan 2001 with Google as an assignee. Needless to say, Google realized the advantage this new algo would offer to their ranking system if combined with their own PR system. Hilltop could perfectly bridge the gap. The Hilltop algo may have gone through several refinements/iterations from its original form, before this deployment.