Google has made news this week by unveiling a new five-part video series titled: “How Search Works.” In this series, Google peels back the curtain to reveal the mechanisms and algorithms that power its search engine, offering businesses and marketers a behind-the-scenes look at the technology that shapes our digital landscape.
The first video was released on the 15th and acts as the introduction to the series. The presenter, a Google engineer named Gary Illyes, invites the audience on a journey of exploration and understanding, detailing the fundamentals that explain how Google reads information and uses that information to rank web pages within Google’s search engine.
Illyes explains that the following videos will break down exactly what happens during a Google search:
- Crawling – How Google traverses the internet, discovering new URLs and exploring the vast amount of online content.
- Indexing – The process of Google reading the content and context of web pages, then storing them in a searchable format within its index.
- Serving – How Google uses its algorithms and data collected to serve and rank search results based on relevance, authority, and user intent.
The last video will analyze the results of a Google Search, break down the information, and explain to marketers, web designers, and business owners what they can do to increase visibility.
In this introduction video, Illyes also made two key statements that stood out.
The first statement challenges the misconception that Google accepts payments to prioritize web pages in Google’s search algorithm. While paying for Google ads brings your website to the top of the ranking, it discloses this information by displaying that the web page is “Sponsored”.
The second statement expresses the importance of quality page content in order to determine a website’s “Google-ability.” Basically, a huge contributor of how you rank on Google has to do with the quality of the content on your website.
In conclusion, this web-series will offer an insightful glimpse into the mechanisms powering the world’s most popular search engine. Whether you’re a digital marketer, website owner, or simply curious about the mechanics of online search, “How Search Works” promises to deliver illuminating insights that will inform and inspire. Stay tuned as we’ll be covering the rest of the web-series as the episodes are released.
