When you hear the word “Google” what comes to mind? “Answers” I guess. According to February 25th 2019 report by SEOTribunal. On average, Google handles 3.8 million searches per minute across the globe. That is about 228 million searches per hour, 5.6 billion searches per day and 2 trillion searches per year! This means Google is the most-visited website in the world.
Google search also called Google was originally developed in 1997 by Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Scott Hassan. The online search engine was designed to provide search results for text in publicly available documents offered by web servers. It also provides other data results, such as images or data contained in databases. Google introduced “Google Voice Search” to search for spoken words rather than having them typed.
How Does Google Get All Of Its Information?
Looking at the uniqueness, usefulness and complexity of the search engine, one will be forced to ask – If Google has all the answers, where and how does it get these answers?
Well, Google gets information from various sources, including:
i. Web pages.
ii. Book scanning.
iii. Public databases available on the internet.
iv. User-submitted contents such as Google Maps user and your Business profile submissions and Many other sources.
1. Web Pages
A web page is a document that can be displayed in a web browser on the internet.
Google gets most of its information from web pages by following 3 basic steps:
°Crawling: The primary step is knowing what pages are available on the web. Since there isn’t a central registry of all web pages, Google must continuously search and update its list of web pages. Some pages become known if Google has already visited or discovered when Google follows a link from a known page to a new page.
Google goes into a page from the page’s URL, to discover what’s on it. It analyzes both the text and non-text content and overall visual layout to decide where it can appear in search results. Google knows what the page is all about will now be able to respond with results when people are looking for such content.
°Indexing: The process by which Google tries to understand what the page is all about is called indexing. Google examines the content of the web page, categorizing images and video files embedded on the page. This information gathered is stored in the Google index.
°Ranking: For every search, Google endeavours to get at the most relevant answer from its index based on many conditions – The highest quality answers, and other considerations such as the user’s location, language, and device (desktop or phone). This is aimed at improving user experience and providing the most appropriate answer. For instance, searching for “Beans and Bread” would pop out different answers to a user in Abuja than it would to a user in Ibadan.
2. Books Scanning
Google searches through thousands of E-books that are available on the internet for relevant keywords, sentences and paragraphs that contain the most appropriate answer to a user’s query, and pops them out as search results. It does this at such a speed a user get results in the shortest time possible.
3. Public Databases
Google crawls through public databases available on the internet for appropriate answers to a user’s query. Public databases such as ICT Statistics Database and International Data Base (IDB), Demographic Statistics amongst others.
The Google search is one of the discoveries that has shaped our world in ways we least imagined. Google is everyone’s friend, a residual of answers and the first point of call for anyone who seeks knowledge and clarity.
Imagine how tiring and long it would take you to scan through thousands of web pages, books and other publications to get answers. The world would have scampered in ignorance with so many questions left unanswered.
