resources
Algorithm
Algorithm - a series of instructions required to accomplish a specific task. Algorithms can make use of "iteration" (repetition) or logical decisions, and groups of simple algorithms can be combined together to form more complex algorithms. A rough analogy of an algorithm is a "recipe".
In interactive advertising, we often hear about "search engine algorithms". These are a set of rules and instructions that a search engine uses to determine the relevance of a web page to search terms entered by a user (and therefore its ranking in search results).
Search engine algorithms might include taking account of things like:
- The occurence and frequency of search terms in the page's content
- Statistical analysis of the occurence of those search terms with known similar terms
- The position of those terms in the page contents, domain name or page title as an indication of the importance of those terms in the context of the page contents
- The popularity of the page - often measured by the number of other sites linking to that page
- User popularity ranking
- Traffic to that page or the site that page is on
