This article is a continuation of "How Clusters May Affect Link Exchange Efforts," where it was revealed that the PageRank display on the Google Toolbar may not be as important as previously thought.

One recently published article on this topic speculated that "it's very likely that the PageRank number that can be seen in the Google Toolbar is mainly a marketing instrument for Google that doesn't have much effect on the search results. Google seems to use an internal PageRank value for its ranking algorithm and a public PageRank value for the toolbar."

It's also possible that this is an attempt by Google to encourage webmasters to choose potential link exchange partners based on the quality of their site content, rather than on PageRank alone. Choosing high-ranking link exchange partners can boost your own link popularity in the search engines, although Google has stated that it doesn't like efforts to artificially manipulate its search results.

And that brings us back to clustering. In October, 2004, Peter Norvig, Ph.D., Director of Search Quality for Google announced that Google has the world's largest search clustering database.

Google believes clustering will help improve search results by helping the search engine understand intended meanings of words. Google has started looking at factors other than links and keywords. Now, the world's most popular search engine is developing technology that draws meaning from related words on a page.

For example, let's say you type the word "Java" into a search engine. Google will pull up a bunch of pages on Java and by looking at on-page word associations, the search engine will be able to guess whether those pages are about the computer language or the coffee bean.

Clustering is a fairly new approach but it can already be found on the market in the form of Vivisimo's Clusty search engine. Clusty, which is still in beta, promises to be the next generation of search. However, the clustering search engine might soon see some real competition from Google.

This technology is still in development stages but some search engine optimization experts believe it is very promising and may one day replace Google's PageRank algorithm.

"Certainly one application for clusters is in results pages, and it may be something we do at some time," Norvig admitted.

How will clustering affect link exchange strategies? Clustering might just add importance to already well-known search engine optimization tricks, such as choosing related sites as your link exchange partners. It would also be beneficial for any link pointing to your site to contain the keyword or keyphrase you'd like to be found for in a search.

The LinksMaster.com link exchange program offers filters for choosing relevant link exchange partners, and allows you to include keywords and keyphrases in your link titles. Get more information on joining LinksMaster.com.

Innovation is crucial for any search engine that wants to stay a step ahead in the search engine industry. The people at Google Labs obviously think with that kind of innovation.

Will clustering one day replace PageRank? Only time will tell...