A newish patent application from Yahoo named Identifying excessively reciprocal links among web entities was filed on January 8, 2009. The patent inventors include Priyank Garg and Tim Converse of Yahoo, both well-known search engineers at Yahoo. Of course, we have an excellent and thorough explanation of that patent from Bill Slawski. We also have a write up from David Harry on the patent app.

Here is the abstract:

So I am not going to repeat the summaries of this patent app, for that, use the links above. There is a lot of discussion around it.

Threads at Sphinn, WebmasterWorld are starting to get their minds ‘wet’ with debate over the patent application. Of course, it is always important to remember that a patent or patent app does not mean a search engine is actually using the methods in the current algorithms, nor does it mean they are using it exactly like it is written in the patent.

Martinibuster adds a nice point in the Sphinn thread saying:

Let’s not forget that Google added the words excessive to their link schemes document a while back.

Forum discussion at Sphinn, WebmasterWorld.