Does Google run the BCS?
As the college football season comes down the stretch there has been the annual talk about whether the Bowl Championship Series is a good thing for the game or not. As I listened to coaches and players talk about where they might fall in the standings I began to think how close the BCS is to search engine rankings.
Every season each team starts out with a clear slate, much like when a new website is created. Sure, there may be preconceived notions about how a team will do, but it’s really up to the team to prove itself over the first few weeks before the first BCS rankings of the year come out.
When a new website is created at a new URL, Google generally will not display that site in its search results immediately. It will wait to see what other sites link to it and what kind of updates it gets before including it in results. With sites that already exist it’s much like a team that was ranking high the previous year. They will have a high ranking right after the updated site is launched, but Google is always watching to see if the updates have changed the content and value of the site—much like a team that loses all it’s seniors to graduation.
Sites can work with partners or post on blogs to get as many incoming links as possible, but at the end of the day it really boils down to having quality content on the site that people find useful. I’d throw the “If you build it they will come” quote in here, but that’d be mixing my sports analogies.
Players and coaches across the country are talking about just winning their games and letting the rankings take care of themselves—just like building a solid website with info people want.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, I did wear a different T-shirt for last Thursday’s Ducks game. That’ll teach me.
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