Simple Wave Theory For The Web

In the simplest terms, I think a wave can be described as a repeated disruption in the equilibrium of a system (as opposed to a change in the system’s equilibrium). The disruption is measurable in some way, where you can map the distance between two crests. A crest would be the maximum effect that any particular disruption has upon the equilibrium.

We evaluate waves in many different types of media, including vacuum (where only electromagnetic and gravitational waves have so far been documented). I believe it is possible to express wave theory with respect to how certain types of events occur on the Web.

Let’s call them Echo Events, where a Web site A echoes the activity of a Web site B. To identify a wave, we need a sequence of two events. Here is the interesting thing: we can define the events either as a sequence of echoes across multiple Web sites OR as a sequence of echoes between two Web sites.

Example 1: Web site David publishes new, unique content. Web site Edward echoes the new content on Web site David and then Web site Frank echoes the new content on Web site Edward.

Wave Type 1 = David –> Edward –>Frank

Example 2: Web site David publishes new, unique content (call it Topic One). Web site Edward echoes David’s content. David then publishes more new, unique content (call it Topic Two). Edward then echoes Topic Two, just as it had earlier echoed Topic One.

Wave Type 2 = David –> Edward + David –> Edward

An Echo Event occurs when a Web site substantially restates and acknowledges the content published by another Web site. Let’s say you read this article today and, after giving it some thought, you conclude it could be reworded more efficiently — perhaps adding some insight of your own in the process. So you write an article about Wave Theory For The Web and acknowledge that you first read about it here. That would be an Echo Event.

These two types of Echo Events are Extended Echoes and Local Echoes. An echo is extended if and only if it is carried beyond the first echoing site to another echoing site. An echo is local if and only if it only occurs within one step of the originating site.

It is quite possible for a Web site to originate many local echoes. It is also quite possible for a Web site to originate many extended echoes. It stands to reason that the more extended echoes a Web site originates, the more influential the Web site becomes.

Local echoes can be further sub-divided into weak echoes and strong echoes. A weak echo occurs between two closely related Web sites. At an intuitive level, we would expect a Web site operated by the same entity to occasionally (perhaps even frequently) reinforce and support the content on another site operated by the same entity. Hence, if I publish an article on Xenite.Org and republish another article that echoes the first on SF-Fandom, that’s a weak echo because I control both sites.

But you don’t have to have two closely controlled sites to have weak echoes. Two unrelated Web sites can develop close relationships through their links. For example, let’s assume I create an account at Sphinn and I immediately Sphinn every post on SEO Theory as it is published. I don’t control Sphinn, I’m not a Sphinn moderator — I just have an account there. Nonetheless, after publishing 500 articles on SEO Theory I should have 500 Sphinn articles about my SEO Theory articles. That’s a pretty close relationship between the two sites. Hence, though Sphinn number 1 for SEO Theory would be a strong echo, Sphinn number 500 would be a weak echo.

Echo strength is an abstraction that we can use to gauge how closely two Web sites support each other. If a Web site originates only strong echoes, that would seem a bit strange to me. Why don’t the earlier echoing sites repeat their behavior? Either the originating site changes its topicality frequently or else the echoing sites are behaving in a strange way.

In other words, when a Web site echoes another Web site’s content, the probability that the echoing site will echo again increases. Why is that? Because the author of the echoing content is aware enough of the originating site’s content that it is more likely that same author will echo something else than that a complete stranger will echo subsequent content.

But if the probability of additional local echoes increases as a relationship grows stronger between two sites, then the strength of additional echoes must decrease. This is entirely intuitive, which is to say that I am not yet ready to provide a formal proof for that logic. But I’m pretty sure we can figure out ways to show this to be the case.

Extended echoes also decrease in strength as their repetitions increase. In other words, waves tend to smooth out across the Web until a community of Web sites that echo each others’ content becomes almost indistinguishable. I have observed this phenomenon in several topic communities including: Xena fan sites, Lord of the Rings movie fan sites, and SEO industry sites.

The more small groups of sites echo their content within their spheres of influence, the more homogenous and less distinctive their content becomes. In today’s Web you could pretty much replace most SEO blogs and tutorials with many other SEO blogs and tutorials. They are all saying very similar things. The homogeneity of content blinds and confuses visitors, who eventually start excluding some sites from their visited destinations.

In other words, as competition for similar traffic becomes more intense, the traffic becomes more concentrated in a decreasing number of Web sites. Again, I have noticed this principle holds true for all three communities where I have tracked the echoing phenomenon.

That isn’t to say that one site eventually emerges as the dominant site and forever remains in place. In the SEO community we have clearly seen leadership shift from site to site to site. There are enough new ideas put forth each year that the SEO Web community looks sort of like a bubbling soup. Some of the past community leader sites that are no longer major influences in the industry include Virtual Promote, ThreadWatch, and Search Engine Watch.

I think it could be argued that Search Engine Watch retains a strong leadership position in the SEO community but it is no longer the dominant player it was two years ago. When Danny Sullivan left Search Engine Watch and launched Search Engine Land, he also built Sphinn and the SMX conference series — introducing new ideas into the SEO Web community that sparked new waves of echoes.

The waves that resonate throughout Web communities can be measured in terms of how many local echoes become extended echoes. The more extended echoes a Web site originates the more waves it creates. Those waves radiate outward from the originating sites just like waves might radiate outward from bobbing balls in a pond. Imagine a pond where you have 100 balls bobbing in the water, each generating its own waves, waves that bounce off some of the other balls. That is very similar to how the World Wide Web works.

We are constantly echoing each other’s ideas and content. Some sites echo more than other sites, and some sites are echoed more than other sites. There is certainly no shame or weakness in echoing the content of other sites. Some very good aggregation sites are designed to echo: DIGG, Sphinn, StumbleUpon, Newsvine, and other social media sharing sites are essentially echo engines.

The echo engines can themselves originate content and thus be echoed. Social media tends to mediate Web waves much better, much faster, more efficiently than traditional Web 1.0 sites do. A typical static business site, or even an eCommerce site, is not nearly as likely to echo many other sites as a forum or blog, but even forums and blogs can become isolated or insular. Social media sites, however, only succeed when they echo large numbers of other sites.

Social profile sites like Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn echo content in less obvious ways. The replicate themes, replicate personal data, and otherwise assert similar personal footprints for content creators across the Web. Some people might argue that some wave characteristics are tied to the types of content we create. For example, if I place my resume on a dozen sites, are those echoes as strong as my placing the same article on a dozen sites?

We can think of all Web sites as being influencers. The more local echoes a site originates, the greater its local influence is. That is, a small loyal core of sites probably follow the originator site. The more extended echoes the site originates, the greater its extended influence becomes.

A site like CNN is a powerful extended influencer. A site like the average every day blog is a very weak extended influencer.

These types of waves could be described as Macro Web Waves. There are also Super Web Waves. Think of those homogenous communities of sites whose messages are almost always so similar as to be indistinguishable from each other. Whenever those communities’ topics are echoed by other communities, a Super Echo has occurred. If two or more Super Echoes occur, then a Super Wave has rolled out from one community to one or more other communities.

To illustrate, let’s say that all the SEO Web sites talk about PageRank sculpting. After a while all the Web design sites (that don’t normally discuss search engine optimization) begin talking about PageRank sculpting. That’s a Super Echo between two communities (and probably a weak Super Echo, as there have probably been many echoes between the two communities through the years). Now, what if the PR community picks up the idea of PageRank sculpting from the Web design community? That would be an Extended Super Echo (and thus a Super Wave).

If we can have Macro Waves and Super Waves, can we have Micro Waves? Of course. Micro Waves have to exist within single Web sites. They are most likely to occur within social media sites like Twitter, Blogger, and Wordpress, where users in the same service echo each other’s content. You can still have local echo events and extended echo events, but they all occur within the same domain.

So what does all that have to do with search engine optimization? Well, there are correlations between query spaces and Web communities and there are correlations between large resonating fields (areas of the Web where powerful influencer sites originate many extended echoes) and hypercompetitive query spaces.

That is, Wave Theory For The Web provides us with another means of looking at the growth of interest and activity in Web topics. To some extent we can identify insular Web communities and highly connected Web communities.

For those of you who believe in “powerful links”, where do you think the most powerful linking resources are going to be found?

It’s something to ponder, while you’re recovering from the holidays.