How Google Search Works

Ever wonder what happens when you search for something? Google has released a very informative and interesting website that explains to us how exactly search works. Something that is done billions of times a day on Google alone, but is really hardly thought about; at least not in the way it is detailed by Google on their new website How Search Works. Google explains its search story in 3 parts: crawling and indexing, algorithms, and fighting spam.

Crawling and Indexing

When a search query is entered, Google crawls more than 30 trillion pages, as long as webmasters allow their site to be crawled. Google then sorts what they have indexed according to content and other factors to find the answers, categorizing the data and indexes it. All of that data that makes up The Index and is comprised of 100 million gigabytes of information.

Algorithms

What is an algorithm? It is a calculation from the programs and formulas that Google has developed to insure they deliver the best results possible. The algorithm is always being changed and improved upon and one of the focuses today is to interpret what the searcher was looking for by using clues. Google then ranks that data in order using 200 factors including site and page quality, freshness, safe search, user context, translation, and universal search. The outcome is the results page you see within milliseconds of performing your search query. The results can take a variety of forms, websites, news articles, pictures, or videos and can be seen on a variety of computer or mobile screens.

Fighting SPAM

As you can see, Google considers fighting SPAM a very important part of what they do. What is SPAM to Google? It is defined as unwanted results that are misleading; contain malware, phishing, copyright infringement, or other objectionable content.  They are fighting SPAM 24/7. Most of the SPAM removal is done automatically and some questionable items are looked at manually to determine if they need to be removed. Google notifies webmasters of removals and gives them a chance to fix the problem and request re-indexing. Google’s search story page actually has a link that shows you what recently removed and how many reconsideration requests they process.

Fun Fact: In the time it took to write this blog post, over 10 million search queries were performed.