IncRev SEO Research
Published October 13, 2025 | Version v1
Preprint Open

Why Google Needs Thousands of Seed Sites for Efficient Web Indexing

Authors/Creators

Description

This preprint explores why Google’s web ranking system, as described in patent US9165040B1, cannot rely on a single seed site. Using results from web graph research, I show that one seed leads to exponential computational costs and leaves large parts of the web unreachable. By contrast, thousands of seed sites ensure near-complete coverage and significantly reduce wasted computation, aligning with Google’s sustainability goals. The paper highlights both the algorithmic and energy-efficiency reasons for seed diversity, with direct implications for SEO and link authority.

Keywords

Google, seed sites, web graph, search engines, PageRank, information retrieval, sustainability, SEO, TrustRank

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seed_sites_article_IncRev_zenodo_DOI_10.5281:zenodo.17340116.pdf

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Additional details

Additional titles

Alternative title (English)
Why Google Needs Thousands of Seed Sites for Efficient Web Indexing

Related works

Cites
Journal article: 10.1016/S1389-1286(00)00083-9 (DOI)
Conference paper: 10.1145/2567948.2576928 (DOI)

References

  • Google Patent: Producing a ranking for pages using distances in a web-link graph (US9165040B1).
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  • Meusel, R., Vigna, S., Lehmberg, O., & Bizer, C. (2014). Graph Structure in the Web Revisited. Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on World Wide Web Companion (pp. 1133–1141). ACM.
  • Gyöngyi, Z., Garcia-Molina, H., & Pedersen, J. (2004). Combating Web Spam with TrustRank. Proceedings of the 30th VLDB Conference, Toronto, Canada.
  • Netcraft (2025). Web Server Survey. Netcraft Ltd. Retrieved from https://news.netcraft.com
  • IncRev Academy 2025). Google TrustRank: The definitive guide to build trust and authority. Incredible Revenue AB (IncRev.co) https://increv.co/academy/google-trustrank/