Evidence Content Optimisation

Information gain scores reward documents that add new information

Google's information gain patent describes scoring documents by how much new information they add beyond what a user has already seen.

ID
SS-EV-010
Confidence
Established · 80
Evidence
Established
Updated
2026-07-08

The claim

In multi-document and conversational contexts, documents that contribute genuinely new information can be ranked more favourably than those that merely repeat existing content.

What the evidence shows

The information gain patent describes computing an information gain score for a document relative to content the user has already been shown, favouring results that add incremental value. This is especially relevant to research journeys and AI/assistant contexts, where restating consensus is penalised relative to contributing original data, analysis or perspective.

Source

Source
Google information gain patent (US filings referencing information gain scores)
Type
Patent
Year
2021
Strength
Moderate

How SearchScore applies it

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