Become.com has had their Affinity Index Ranking (AIR™) technology patent approved by the US Patent Office.

That is the news out of the Sunnyvale, California headquarters.  It is big too, as Become.com is a fast growing comparison shopping engine who prides itself on this technology. This technology assigns relative rank values to links (web pages) by analyzing quality points in a nodal network.

“Rather than rank pages based on keyword saturation and position, AIR provides the most relevant pages higher positioning while avoiding vulnerability to the artificial Web that such conventional link analysis often falls prey to. ‘We are extremely pleased about our patent. AIR technology provides a more intuitive ranking that isn’t spammed through keyword stuffing,’ says Become’s CEO and founder Michael Yang. ‘Our shoppers want relevant product information while comparison shopping on Become.com and AIR delivers it.’ ” – Become.com Press Release

It is a huge advance towards a spam free index, with no keyword stuffing.

What you need to know about Become.com:

Become.com is establishing itself as a player in the comparison shopping engine environment. Become is a classic model CSE that is great for consumer product research and comparison. Become accepts data feeds, FTP uploads and crawls the Web for shopping related pages to identify changes to existing pages.  They are a CPC based pricing model with free setup. Minimum bids are required, based on the category your products.

Sign up your online store with Become.com now. Visit https://www.become.com/merchant/SignUp.aspx