Research the following and create a page in your portfolio with your response. Be sure to reference your sources and provide links to them. Also, don't create a purely textual page-- add images and video.  You may work in groups of two, maximum.

DUE WED, FEB 25, MIDNIGHT (send link to wolber@usfca.edu and put on portfolio)

1. Describe the overall formula that Google uses to rank web pages. Note that Google uses both 'page rank' and term analysis in their ranking-- be sure and describe in English what both of these are. Here is some reading to help:

    http://www.webworkshop.net/pagerank.html
    http://www.ianrogers.net/google-page-rank/

    From Google: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=40349&topic=15260,
                           http://www.google.com/corporate/tech.html

2. Google continually crawls the web, creating a huge database of URLs and links between them. When a new web page is created, it takes Google's crawlers some time to 'index' it.

a. Do some research to find out the lag time-- in general, how long does it take for Google to index a new web page you've created (how long before someone will find your page when searching)?

b. Technorati (technorati.com) is sometimes referred to as "The World Live Web". How does it mitigate the lag time of traditional search crawlers?  Hint: find out what it means for a blog to 'ping'.

3. The Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive (archive.org) has a copy of virtually every web page ever created. Cut and paste pictures of some website (e.g., USF, Yahoo) over a period of time (e.g., currently, five years ago, and ten years  ago). Also, provide a synopsis of how the Wayback Machine was used in a real-world scenario (e.g. a legal challenge).

4. Describe Kartoo and two other search engines that present results in a different manner than Google. Provide screenshots of sample results.

5. Define search engine optimization (SEO) and describe at least ten techniques for optimizing the ranking of a web site. Here's a video discussing it:

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VWkxDHhi1A

6. Discuss Google's legal battle with Search King (2002-2003). What was the battle about? Show arguments on both sides. How has the general debate on this issue evolved since 2003?

    Here's an article to get you started: http://www.slate.com/id/2077875/

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