The Search Evolution at Google

Google is not only a search engine, it’s a social phenomenon. These days, as an average person dependent on the Internet for your rozi-roti (livelihood) you don’t even realize how many times you “google” the information you immediately want. But do you ever think what goes on behind the scenes? How does Google find the pages you need? This is a contentious issue.

To be frank there are many instances when I don’t find what I’m looking for, but in most of the cases, if I’m not able to find something, it doesn’t exist in the Google index.

An article titled Google Keeps Tweaking Its Search Engine in the New York Times begins with:

THESE days, Google seems to be doing everything, everywhere. It takes pictures of your house from outer space, copies rare Sanskrit books in India, charms its way onto Madison Avenue, picks fights with Hollywood and tries to undercut Microsoft’s software dominance.

But at its core, Google remains a search engine. And its search pages, blue hyperlinks set against a bland, white background, have made it the most visited, most profitable and arguably the most powerful company on the Internet. Google is the homework helper, navigator and yellow pages for half a billion users, able to find the most improbable needles in the world’s largest haystack of information in just the blink of an eye.

But as I said, you don’t always get what you are looking for:

Yet however easy it is to wax poetic about the modern-day miracle of Google, the site is also among the world’s biggest teases. Millions of times a day, users click away from Google, disappointed that they couldn’t find the hotel, the recipe or the background of that hot guy. Google often finds what users want, but it doesn’t always.

This article was sourced from Matt Cutt’s post titled Five Things You Didn’t Know About Google’s search.

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