how google search works?

Every day, billions of people come here with questions – about all kinds of things.Sometimes we even get questions about Google Search itself – like, how this whole thingactually works, and while this is a subject entire books have been written about, there’sa good chance you’re in the market for something a little more concise.So, let’s say it’s getting close to dinner and you want a recipe for... lasagna.You’ve probably seen this before.But let’s go a little deeper.Since the beginning, back when the homepage looked like this, Google has been continuouslymapping the web - hundreds of billions of pages - to create something called an index.Think of it as the giant library we look through whenever you do a search for lasagna or anythingelse.Now the word lasagna shows up a lot on the web: pages about the history of lasagna, articlesby a scientist whose last name happened to be “Lasagna” stuff other people mightbe looking for.But, if you’re hungry, randomly clicking through millions of links is no fun.This is where Google’s ranking algorithms come into play: first, they try to understandwhat you’re looking for, so they can be helpful even if you don’t know exactly theright words to use, or if your spelling is a little off.Then they sift through millions of possible matches in the index, and automatically assemblea page that tries to put the most relevant information up top, for you to choose from.Ok, now we have some results.But how did the algorithms actually decide what made it onto the first page?There are hundreds of factors that go into ranking search results, so let’s talk abouta few of them: You may already know that pages containingthe words you searched for are more likely to end up at the top – no surprise there.But the location of those words, like, in the page’s title, or in an image’s caption– those are factors too.There’s a lot more to ranking than just words.Back when Google got started, we looked at how pages linked to each other to better understandwhat pages were about and how important and trustworthy they seemed.Today, linking is still an important factor.Another factor is location – where a search happens – because if you happen to be inOrmea, Italy, you might be looking for information about their annual lasagna festival, but ifyou’re in Omaha, Nebraska, you probably aren’t.When a webpage was uploaded is an important factor too – pages published more recentlyoften have more accurate information, especially in the case of a rapidly developing news story.Of course, not every site on the web is trying to be helpful.Just like with robocalls on your phone or spam in your email, there are a lot of sitesthat only exist to scam, and every day, scammers upload millions more of them.So just because instantvirusdownload.net lists the words “lasagna recipe” 400 times,that doesn’t mean it’s going to help you make dinner.We spend a lot of time trying to stay one step ahead of tricks like these, making sureour algorithms can recognize scam sites and flag them before they make it to your Searchresults page.So, let’s review: billions of times a day, whenever someone searches for lasagna, or“resume writing tips” or “how to swaddle a baby” or anything else, Google’s softwarelocates all the potentially relevant results on the web, removes all the spam, and ranksthem based on hundreds of factors like keywords, links, location, and freshness.Ok.Good time to take a breath.This last part is about how we make changes to search, and it’s important.Since 1998, when Google went online, people seem to have found our results pretty helpful.But, the web is always changing, and people are always searching for new things – in fact,one in every seven searches is for something that’s never been typed into the searchbox before, by anyone ever.So, we’re always working on updates to Search – thousands every year.Which brings up a big question: how do we decide whether a change is making search morehelpful?Well, one of the ways we evaluate potential updates to Search is by asking people likeyou.Every day, thousands of Search Quality Raters look at samples of search results side-by-side,then give feedback about the relevance and reliability of the information.To make sure those evaluations are consistent, the raters follow a list of Search QualityEvaluator Guidelines.Think of them as our publicly available guide to what makes a good result... good.Oh, and one last thing to remember: we use responses from Raters to evaluate changes,but they don’t directly impact how Search results are ranked.So, there you have it: every time you click “search”, our algorithms are analyzingthe meaning of the words in your search, matching them to content on the web, understandingwhat content is most likely to be helpful and reliable, and then automatically puttingit all together in a neatly organized page designed to get you to the info you need.All in... oh 0.81 seconds.Wow.Anyone else ready for dinner?Interested in learning more?We&ve got a whole website dedicated to how Search works.Just click right here.Want to read the Search Quality Rater Guidelines for yourself?Click right here.