The Hilltop algorithm is an
algorithm
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specificat ...
used to find documents relevant to a particular keyword topic in news search. Created by
Krishna Bharat
Krishna Bharat (born 7 January 1970) is an Indian research scientist at Google Inc. He was formerly a founding adviser for Grokstyle Inc. a visual search company and Laserlike Inc., an interest search engine startup based on Machine learning, M ...
while he was at
Compaq Systems Research Center and
George A. Mihăilă
George may refer to:
People
* George (given name)
* George (surname)
* George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George
* George Washington, First President of the United States
* George W. Bush, 43rd President ...
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...
,
it was acquired by
Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
for use in its news results in February 2003.
When you enter a query or keyword into the
Google news search engine, the Hilltop algorithm helps to find relevant keywords whose results are more informative about the query or keyword.
The algorithm operates on a special index of ''expert documents''. These are pages that are about a specific topic and have links to many non-affiliated pages on that topic. The original algorithm relied on independent directories with categorized links to sites. Results are ranked based on the match between the query and relevant descriptive text for
hyperlink
In computing, a hyperlink, or simply a link, is a digital reference to data that the user can follow or be guided by clicking or tapping. A hyperlink points to a whole document or to a specific element within a document. Hypertext is text wit ...
s on expert pages pointing to a given result page. Websites which have
backlinks
A backlink is a link from some other website (the referrer) to that web resource (the referent). A ''web resource'' may be (for example) a website, web page, or web directory.
A backlink is a reference comparable to a citation. The quantity, q ...
from many of the best expert pages are ''authorities'' and are ranked well.
Basically, it looks at the relationship between the "expert" and "authority" pages: an "expert" is a page that links to many other relevant documents; an "authority" is a page that has links pointing to it from the "expert" pages. Here they mean pages about a specific topic with links to many non-affiliated pages on that topic. If a website has
backlink
A backlink is a link from some other website (the referrer) to that web resource (the referent). A ''web resource'' may be (for example) a website, web page, or web directory.
A backlink is a reference comparable to a citation. The quantity, q ...
s from many of the best expert pages it will be an "authority".
See also
*
PageRank
PageRank (PR) is an algorithm used by Google Search to rank web pages in their search engine results. It is named after both the term "web page" and co-founder Larry Page. PageRank is a way of measuring the importance of website pages. According ...
*
TrustRank
TrustRank is an algorithm that conducts link analysis to separate useful webpages from spam and helps search engine rank pages in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). It is semi-automated process which means that it needs some human assistance i ...
*
HITS algorithm Hyperlink-Induced Topic Search (HITS; also known as hubs and authorities) is a link analysis algorithm that rates Web pages, developed by Jon Kleinberg. The idea behind Hubs and Authorities stemmed from a particular insight into the creation of web ...
*
Domain Authority
The domain authority (also referred to as thought leadership) of a website describes its relevance for a specific subject area or industry. Domain Authority is a search engine ranking score developed by Moz. This relevance has a direct impact on it ...
*
Search engine optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the quality and quantity of Web traffic, website traffic to a website or a web page from web search engine, search engines. SEO targets unpaid traffic (known as "natural" or "Organ ...
References
External links
*
Interview with Krishna Bharat Business Today, June 6, 2004
*
When Experts Agree: Using Non-Affiliated Experts to Rank Popular Topicsby K. Bharat and G. A. Mihaila is substantially the same, but under a different title.
Google Search
Reputation management
{{algorithm-stub