You may have read other webmasters comments saying that chasing the latest Google algorithms is a waste of time, simply provide good content and you will do fine.

To a large degree this is true, and is emphasized in the latest patent. If you provide fresh, unique content on a regular basis, and do nothing that Google or the other search engines consider as spam, then likely you will eventually start rating well in the search engine SERPS.

There lies the problem; most of us do not want to wait until we are “eventually” rewarded by the search engines. Therefore it becomes necessary to apply some SEO to help speed things along. If we do not know what is considered as spam,

then we run the very real risk of actually damaging the ratings our website receives instead of helping them. This and the following articles contain our observations on the latest Google patent (20050071741).

In no particular order I will address some of the things I have found in the latest Google patent that may be useful in helping the search engines see your site in the best possible light. The goal of these articles are to identify what Google and likely other search engines consider to be acceptable practices and what they may consider to be “Black Hat” SEO. In all cases though it is the individual Webmasters responsibility to decide if the information contained in these articles is suitable for use, and therefore assumes all risk in applying the thoughts contained therein.

Another point to note is that although these points are noted in the patent they are not necessarily currently being implemented. However going though the patent you see that what is lined out makes sense, and applying points from it will be beneficial to most sites.

First lets go over Google's Mission

...editor