You can translate the content of this page by selecting a language in the select box.
Google Search is one of the most popular search engines on the web, handling over 3.5 billion searches per day. But what is the tech stack that powers Google Search?
The PageRank algorithm is at the heart of Google Search. This algorithm was developed by Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and patented in 1998. It ranks web pages based on their quality and importance, taking into account things like incoming links from other websites. The PageRank algorithm has been constantly evolving over the years, and it continues to be a key part of Google Search today.
However, the PageRank algorithm is just one part of the story. The Google Search Engine also relies on a sophisticated infrastructure of servers and data centers spread around the world. This infrastructure enables Google to crawl and index billions of web pages quickly and efficiently. Additionally, Google has developed a number of proprietary technologies to further improve the quality of its search results. These include technologies like Spell Check, SafeSearch, and Knowledge Graph.
The technology stack that powers the Google Search Engine is immensely complex, and includes a number of sophisticated algorithms, technologies, and infrastructure components. At the heart of the system is the PageRank algorithm, which ranks pages based on a number of factors, including the number and quality of links to the page. The algorithm is constantly being refined and updated, in order to deliver more relevant and accurate results. In addition to the PageRank algorithm, Google also uses a number of other algorithms, including the Latent Semantic Indexing algorithm, which helps to index and retrieve documents based on their meaning. The search engine also makes use of a massive infrastructure, which includes hundreds of thousands of servers around the world. While google is the dominant player in the search engine market, there are a number of other well-established competitors, such as Microsoft’s Bing search engine and Duck Duck Go.
The original Google algorithm was called PageRank, named after inventor Larry Page (though, fittingly, the algorithm does rank web pages).
After 17 years of work by many software engineers, researchers, and statisticians, Google search uses algorithms upon algorithms upon algorithms.
- The various components used by Google Search are all proprietary, but most of the code is written in C++.
- Google Search has a number of technical explications on how search works and this is also the limit as to what can be shared publicly.
- https://abseil.io and GogleTest https://google.github.io/googletest/ are the main open source Google C++ libraries, those are extensively used for Search.
- https://bazel.build is an other open source framework which is heavily used all across Google including for Search.
- Google has general information on you, the kinds of things you might like, the sites you frequent, etc. When it fetches search results, they get ranked, and this personal info is used to adjust the rankings, resulting in different search results for each user.
How does Google’s indexing algorithm (so it can do things like fuzzy string matching) technically structure its index?
- There is no single technique that works.
- At a basic level, all search engines have something like an inverted index, so you can look up words and associated documents. There may also be a forward index.
- One way of constructing such an index is by stemming words. Stemming is done with an algorithm than boils down words to their basic root. The most famous stemming algorithm is the Porter stemmer.
- However, there are other approaches. One is to build n-grams, sequences of n letters, so that you can do partial matching. You often would choose multiple n’s, and thus have multiple indexes, since some n-letter combinations are common (e.g., “th”) for small n’s, but larger values of n undermine the intent.
- don’t know that we can say “nothing absolute is known”. Look at misspellings. Google can resolve a lot of them. This isn’t surprising; we’ve had spellcheckers for at least 40 years. However, the less common a misspelling, the harder it is for Google to catch.
- One cool thing about Google is that they have been studying and collecting data on searches for more than 20 years. I don’t mean that they have been studying searching or search engines (although they have been), but that they have been studying how people search. They process several billion search queries each day. They have developed models of what people really want, which often isn’t what they say they want. That’s why they track every click you make on search results… well, that and the fact that they want to build effective models for ad placement.
-
Each year, Google changes its search algorithm around 500–600 times. While most of these changes are minor, Google occasionally rolls out a “major” algorithmic update (such as Google Panda and Google Penguin) that affects search results in significant ways.
For search marketers, knowing the dates of these Google updates can help explain changes in rankings and organic website traffic and ultimately improve search engine optimization. Below, we’ve listed the major algorithmic changes that have had the biggest impact on search.
-
Originally, Google’s indexing algorithm was fairly simple.
It took a starting page and added all the unique (if the word occurred more than once on the page, it was only counted once) words on the page to the index or incremented the index count if it was already in the index.
The page was indexed by the number of references the algorithm found to the specific page. So each time the system found a link to the page on a newly discovered page, the page count was incremented.
When you did a search, the system would identify all the pages with those words on it and show you the ones that had the most links to them.
As people searched and visited pages from the search results, Google would also track the pages that people would click to from the search page. Those that people clicked would also be identified as a better quality match for that set of search terms. If the person quickly came back to the search page and clicked another link, the match quality would be reduced.
Now, Google is using natural language processing, a method of trying to guess what the user really wants. From that it it finds similar words that might give a better set of results based on searches done by millions of other people like you. It might assume that you really meant this other word instead of the word you used in your search terms. It might just give you matches in the list with those other words as well as the words you provided.
It really all boils down to the fact that Google has been monitoring a lot of people doing searches for a very long time. It has a huge list of websites and search terms that have done the job for a lot of people.
There are a lot of proprietary algorithms, but the real magic is that they’ve been watching you and everyone else for a very long time.
What programming language powers Google’s search engine core?
C++, mostly. There are little bits in other languages, but the core of both the indexing system and the serving system is C++.
How does Google handle the technical aspect of fuzzy matching? How is the index implemented for that?
- With n-grams and word stemming. And correcting bad written words. N-grams for partial matching anything.
Use a ping service. Ping services can speed up your indexing process.
- Search Google for “pingmylinks”
- Click on the “add url” in the upper left corner.
- Submit your website and make sure to use all the submission tools and your site should be indexed within hours.
Our ranking algorithm simply doesn’t rank google.com highly for the query “search engine.” There is not a single, simple reason why this is the case. If I had to guess, I would say that people who type “search engine” into Google are usually looking for general information about search engines or about alternative search engines, and neither query is well-answered by listing google.com.
To be clear, we have never manually altered the search results for this (or any other) specific query.
When I tried the query “search engine” on Bing, the results were similar; bing.com was #5 and google.com was #6.
What is the search algorithm used by the Google search engine? What is its complexity?
The basic idea is using an inverted index. This means for each word keeping a list of documents on the web that contain it.
Responding to a query corresponds to retrieval of the matching documents (This is basically done by intersecting the lists for the corresponding query words), processing the documents (extracting quality signals corresponding to the doc, query pair), ranking the documents (using document quality signals like Page Rank and query signals and query/doc signals) then returning the top 10 documents.
Here are some tricks for doing the retrieval part efficiently:
– distribute the whole thing over thousands and thousands of machines
– do it in memory
– caching
– looking first at the query word with the shortest document list
– keeping the documents in the list in reverse PageRank order so that we can stop early once we find enough good quality matches
– keep lists for pairs of words that occur frequently together
– shard by document id, this way the load is somewhat evenly distributed and the intersection is done in parallel
– compress messages that are sent across the network
etc
Jeff Dean in this great talk explains quite a few bits of the internal Google infrastructure. He mentions a few of the previous ideas in the talk.
He goes through the evolution of the Google Search Serving Design and through MapReduce while giving general advice about building large scale systems.
As for complexity, it’s pretty hard to analyze because of all the moving parts, but Jeff mentions that the the latency per query is about 0.2 s and that each query touches on average 1000 computers.
Is Google’s LaMDA conscious? A philosopher’s view (theconversation.com)
LaMDA is Google’s latest artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot. Blake Lemoine, a Google AI engineer, has claimed it is sentient. He’s been put on leave after publishing his conversations with LaMDA.
If Lemoine’s claims are true, it would be a milestone in the history of humankind and technological development.
Google strongly denies LaMDA has any sentient capacity.
Fun facts about Google Search Engine Competitors
Data Source: statcounterGS
Tools Used: Excel & PowerPoint
Edit: Note that the data for Baidu/China is likely higher. How statcounterGS collects the data might understate # users from China.
Baidu is popular in China, Yandex is popular in Russia.
Yandex is great for reverse image searches, google just can’t compete with yandex in that category.
Normal Google reverse search is a joke (except for finding a bigger version of a pic, it’s good for that), but Google Lens can be as good or sometimes better at finding similar images or locations than Yandex depending on the image type. Always good to try both, and also Bing can be decent sometimes.
Bing has been profitable since 2015 even with less than 3% of the market share. So just imagine how much money Google is taking in.
Firstly: Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, etc. all use Bing to get their search results. Which means Bing’s usage is more than the 3% indicated.
Secondly: This graph shows overall market share (phones and PCs). But, search engines make most of their money on desktop searches due to more screen space for ads. And Bing’s market share on desktop is WAY bigger, its market share on phones is ~0%. It’s American desktop market share is 10-15%. That is where the money is.
What you are saying is in fact true though. We make trillions of web searches – which means even three percent market-share equals billions of hits and a ton of money.
I like duck duck go. And they have good privacy features. I just wish their maps were better because if I’m searching a local restaurant nothing is easier than google to transition from the search to the map to the webpage for the company. But for informative searches I think it gives a more objective, less curated return.
Use Ecosia and profits go to reforestation efforts!
Turns out people don’t care about their privacy, especially if it gets them results.
I recently switched to using brave browser and duck duck go and I basically can’t tell the difference in using Google and chrome.
The only times I’ve needed to use Google are for really specific searches where duck duck go doesn’t always seem to give the expected results. But for daily browsing it’s absolutely fine and far far better for privacy.
Does Google Search have the most complex functionality hiding behind a simple looking UI?
There is a lot that happens between the moment a user types something in the input field and when they get their results.
Google Search has a high-level overview, but the gist of it is that there are dozens of sub systems involved and they all work extremely fast. The general idea is that search is going to process the query, try to understand what the user wants to know/accomplish, rank these possibilities, prepare a results page that reflects this and render it on the user’s device.
I would not qualify the UI of simple. Yes, the initial state looks like a single input field on an otherwise empty page. But there is already a lot going on in that input field and how it’s presented to the user. And then, as soon as the user interacts with the field, for instance as they start typing, there’s a ton of other things that happen – Search is able to pre-populate suggested queries really fast. Plus there’s a whole “syntax” to search with operators and what not, there’s many different modes (image, news, etc…).
One recent iteration of Google search is Google Lens: Google Lens interface is even simpler than the single input field: just take a picture with your phone! But under the hood a lot is going on. Source.
Conclusion:
The Google search engine is a remarkable feat of engineering, and its capabilities are only made possible by the use of cutting-edge technology. At the heart of the Google search engine is the PageRank algorithm, which is used to rank web pages in order of importance. This algorithm takes into account a variety of factors, including the number and quality of links to a given page. In order to effectively crawl and index the billions of web pages on the internet, Google has developed a sophisticated infrastructure that includes tens of thousands of servers located around the world. This infrastructure enables Google to rapidly process search queries and deliver relevant results to users in a matter of seconds. While Google is the dominant player in the search engine market, there are a number of other search engines that compete for users, including Bing and Duck Duck Go. However, none of these competitors have been able to replicate the success of Google, due in large part to the company’s unrivaled technological capabilities.
- is it just me or Google is shit at predicting weatherby /u/Superb_Opportunity_4 (Google) on August 9, 2022 at 12:48 pm
Few years back I used to swear by Google weather as it was precise and dependable but nowadays it's shit submitted by /u/Superb_Opportunity_4 [link] [comments]
- recalculating on google photos backup storage. I've tried restarting and reinstalling and it hasnt workedby /u/optimist_on_crack (Google) on August 9, 2022 at 12:34 pm
submitted by /u/optimist_on_crack [link] [comments]
- I've been locked out from quite a few features because my age both is and isn't verified apparently.by /u/scwishyfishy (Google) on August 9, 2022 at 11:58 am
submitted by /u/scwishyfishy [link] [comments]
- Have verified age but Google thinks I'm underage againby /u/erikkonstas (Google) on August 9, 2022 at 11:56 am
It says Location History will be deleted if I don't verify my age in due time (I've already exported it just in case), but I have already done so and it doesn't let me do it again. The other settings I managed to re-enable (except ad personalization which I had disabled from before). submitted by /u/erikkonstas [link] [comments]
- Exciting news: StashApp is NOW available to download on the GooglePlay Store! 🌟🔥💨by /u/roland1013 (Google) on August 9, 2022 at 9:39 am
submitted by /u/roland1013 [link] [comments]
- One of the best perfumes for Men-Flexy Thomas.by /u/Otherwise-Promise-93 (Google) on August 9, 2022 at 4:19 am
submitted by /u/Otherwise-Promise-93 [link] [comments]
- 3 critical hurt after Google facility 'electrical incident'by /u/Alternative-Ninja-50 (Google) on August 9, 2022 at 2:47 am
submitted by /u/Alternative-Ninja-50 [link] [comments]
- Google is back upby /u/JBlack_15 (Google) on August 9, 2022 at 1:44 am
submitted by /u/JBlack_15 [link] [comments]
- Never thought I would see the day...by /u/ThisOne__ (Google) on August 9, 2022 at 1:44 am
https://preview.redd.it/caac6agselg91.png?width=1921&format=png&auto=webp&s=21d491782cfed4fe10270e4164f48c61d78bca20 submitted by /u/ThisOne__ [link] [comments]
- Google appears to be down.by /u/ermergerdberbles (Google) on August 9, 2022 at 1:43 am
submitted by /u/ermergerdberbles [link] [comments]
- I never thought this is something I’d ever see on “Is It Down For Everyone Or Just Me?”by /u/WendysBreakfast2022 (Google) on August 9, 2022 at 1:43 am
submitted by /u/WendysBreakfast2022 [link] [comments]
- Google is also down in Australiaby /u/JoshAtticus (Google) on August 9, 2022 at 1:42 am
submitted by /u/JoshAtticus [link] [comments]
- Google is down.by /u/Andrew9768 (Google) on August 9, 2022 at 1:41 am
submitted by /u/Andrew9768 [link] [comments]
- Google is down, time to riot.by /u/JamesBond-007-- (Google) on August 9, 2022 at 1:41 am
submitted by /u/JamesBond-007-- [link] [comments]
- Damn google is downby /u/blame21forwhat (Google) on August 9, 2022 at 1:41 am
submitted by /u/blame21forwhat [link] [comments]
- Google is down I've seen it allby /u/jappi0505 (Google) on August 9, 2022 at 1:39 am
submitted by /u/jappi0505 [link] [comments]
- Is Google down right now for anyone else? (500 error)by /u/D_G599 (Google) on August 9, 2022 at 1:38 am
submitted by /u/D_G599 [link] [comments]
- Google is DOWN UNBELIEVABLE!!!!by /u/jappi0505 (Google) on August 9, 2022 at 1:38 am
Funny thing is nowhere to search to confirm lol submitted by /u/jappi0505 [link] [comments]
- Google downby /u/TNoStone (Google) on August 9, 2022 at 1:37 am
submitted by /u/TNoStone [link] [comments]
- interesting? wheres my search historyby /u/JBlack_15 (Google) on August 9, 2022 at 1:36 am
submitted by /u/JBlack_15 [link] [comments]
- Google is downby /u/pancakeflipper124 (Google) on August 9, 2022 at 1:35 am
submitted by /u/pancakeflipper124 [link] [comments]
- I can’t access imagesby /u/Sadboy-Rodriguez76 (Google) on August 9, 2022 at 1:26 am
This happened 20 minutes ago it was acting fine then when I went to go see something it said that on google and on safari submitted by /u/Sadboy-Rodriguez76 [link] [comments]
- Location History...by /u/rhoderzzz (Google) on August 8, 2022 at 10:30 pm
So, Google has "paused" location history, which I use quite often to see how far I go out of curiosity because my age is not verified, even though I have done this in the past when I added my Debit Cards onto Google Pay... Therfore, my age is verified. But I have no access to my location History, neither I can find a way to re-enable it... I'm located in the UK, using a Pixel phone alongside Windows OS. Would anyone care to help me out on trying to re-enable the feature as I find it quite useful? Thanks! submitted by /u/rhoderzzz [link] [comments]
- Google sues Sonos over smart speaker and voice control tech. Google is suing Sonos over patent infringement.by /u/inemeywe (Google) on August 8, 2022 at 7:19 pm
With two lawsuits, Google is retaliating against Sonos by claiming that the wireless speaker manufacturer is infringing on a number of its patents related to smart speakers and voice control technology. It's the latest salvo in a legal struggle over wireless speakers that has so far involved several Sonos lawsuits, one Google lawsuit, and a judgement in favor of Sonos that resulted in the removal of functionality from Google's products. Seven more patents are allegedly infringed upon according to these new cases. In one lawsuit, wireless charging and hotword recognition are the main topics, and in the other, it's how a collection of speakers decides which one should respond to voice input. The lawsuits are being brought, according to Google spokesperson José Castaeda, to "protect our technology and challenge Sonos's apparent, continuous infringement of our patents." Sonos has "launched an aggressive and deceptive campaign against our products, at the detriment of our joint customers," according to Castaeda. Both of these claims were submitted to the US District Court for the Northern District of California, according to a post by Bloomberg Law. According to the paper, Google claimed that Sonos products such the One, Arc, Beam, Move, and Roam violated seven patents. "Sonos has chosen to compete in the courtroom at the expense of our mutual customers, rather than competing on the basis of innovation and product quality. Sonos has initiated an aggressive and deceptive campaign against our goods. We would rather innovate than sue, but their actions force us to defend our technology and contend that Sonos is continuing to infringe on our patents, said José Castaeda, a Google spokesperson, in a statement to TechCrunch. Corporations such as Google itself, Meta, Snapchat and Tok Lok app put a lot of man power and facilties into their product to make it innovative and stand out. It is thus a big issue when another corporation swoops in to you use your patented innovation . For a while now, Google and Sonos have been at odds over patents relating to wireless speakers. The US Trade Commission's finding that Google had violated patents relating to casting and group speaker controls earlier this year was a significant victory for the latter party. The Mountain View-based company was forced to eliminate several features from its products, such as a single group volume control for a group of speakers. A Sonos patent relating to moving the playback queue of tunes from one speaker to another was invalidated last week by a Californian judge who sided with Google. When we hear back from Sonos, we will update the article with a remark. submitted by /u/inemeywe [link] [comments]
- 6 ขั้นตอน ลบข้อมูลส่วนตัวออกจาก Google Search ทำเองได้ง่าย ๆby Stelligence (Google Search on Medium) on August 8, 2022 at 9:52 am
เมื่อไม่นานมานี้ Google ได้เริ่มเปิดให้ผู้ใช้งานสามารถลบข้อมูลส่วนบุคคลจากการค้นหาข้อมูลได้ รวมไปถึงหมายเลขโทรศัพท์ อีเมล…Continue reading on Medium »
- Predicting Google Search Trends with XGBoostby Seun Ashaka (Google Search on Medium) on August 8, 2022 at 2:37 am
Google is by far the largest search engine on the planet and according to Oberlo, there are 8.5 billion searched per day on Google. It can…Continue reading on Medium »
- Stop recommending me FAKE movie trailers in google newsby /u/Lion-heart_1040 (Google) on August 7, 2022 at 9:04 pm
So i see "DEADPOOL 3 TRAILER" on my phone from google news or whatever, so i click on it and it turns out to be a fake, concept trailer from screenrant. STOP THIS SH!T google submitted by /u/Lion-heart_1040 [link] [comments]
- Etiqueta de propiedad de Google: una mala idea?by Nguyenthitrangdr (Google Search on Medium) on August 7, 2022 at 11:38 am
Continue reading on Medium »
- How to Choose and Update Your Google My Business Categoryby Love My Online Marketing (Google Search on Medium) on August 7, 2022 at 11:28 am
Google is the world’s most-visited website, so creating a Google Business Profile (formerly known as Google My Business) is vital to…Continue reading on Medium »
- 8 Ways That SEO Has Changed — Didisheim Consultingby Raoul Didisheim (Google Search on Medium) on August 7, 2022 at 12:00 am
Is SEO dead is one of the most frequently asked questions in online marketing.Continue reading on Medium »
- Google Displays New Snippets For Quoted Searchesby Arslan khalid (Google Search on Medium) on August 6, 2022 at 4:01 pm
When you enclose your queries in quotes, Google’s search snippets appear slightly differently. Get more information about the changes in…Continue reading on Medium »
- Introduction to Google Searchby Avneesh Chaudhary (Google Search on Medium) on August 6, 2022 at 7:33 am
Making queries and comprehending algorithmsContinue reading on Medium »
- How to Make Money with Blogging in one months?by Mitran Vasile Claudiu (Google Search on Medium) on August 4, 2022 at 4:21 pm
SEO is one of the most effective strategies to monetize blogs. Search engine optimization, or SEO. Optimizing your blog entries will help…Continue reading on Medium »
- Hey Google News: What’s With This Goofy ‘Source’ Classification?by Robby Delaware (Google Search on Medium) on August 1, 2022 at 12:56 pm
TL;DR: The Google News redesign has resulted in Google News search results being cluttered with spam ‘Source’ labels. Keywords such as…Continue reading on Medium »
- Data-Driven Brand Activities: How to Extract More Value from Data for PR and Marketingby Semrush (Google Search on Medium) on August 1, 2022 at 10:53 am
Semrush is a data-driven SaaS platform which helps its users with search engine optimization, pay-per-click, content, social media and…Continue reading on Medium »