You are sleeping and suddenly it comes to your mind that which is the coldest place in Europe? If you don’t know the answer to this then immediately pick up the phone and Google it. Google will generate thousands and millions of search results in response to your query. In these, you will not only be able to find out the coldest place in Europe, but will also be able to know what is the temperature here throughout the year and when is the maximum snowfall. If you do not want to read the text, Google will also show the photos and videos here. In just a few minutes of research, you will know everything about that place. But how does Google know what information to show you? There are countless web-pages stored on the Internet, then how does Google bring to you those web-pages which you need. How does it know which source and video to show you? In today’s explainer, we will learn how other search engines including Google work.
How do search engines work?
As soon as you type your query in the search box and click OK, it goes into the world of bots and algorithms, which start from showing the video of your choice to even giving information about the dhaba around you, which you did not know about. Actually, all search engines try to answer your question as quickly and accurately as possible. For this they follow a multi-step process, which includes crawling, indexing, ranking and showing results etc. After you ask the question, this whole process starts and in the blink of an eye this process gets completed and thousands and lakhs of answers appear on your screen.
Crawling happens first
The entire process of search results starts with crawling. Search engine crawlers are also called bots or spiders. After understanding your question, they roam on the internet and collect data. These bots or crawlers collect data by visiting each page. These crawlers look at all related web pages, discover new pages and even monitor changes to old pages. Let’s collect all the related information again. Google’s search engine works in the same way. It constantly scans for updates. The job of the crawler is only to collect data and information. After this the process goes for indexing.
What is indexing?
When crawlers collect data from pages, there is a need to organize all this information. Without organizing data or information, it becomes difficult to show relevant results to the user, hence indexing is needed. The search index is like a big digital library catalogue. There can be billions of news webpages in the search engine’s index. The algorithm of indexing analyzes the content of any page. That means it looks at the text, images, metadata and inbound links on the web page. It also detects duplicate pages to prevent crowding of identical pages in the index. Once all the information is indexed, the work of ranking it begins.
How is ranking done?
When results appear on the screen in response to your query, they are not random pages. The search engine’s algorithm ranks them on the basis of relevance and authority. The pages at the top of the ranking are shown to you first and you get most of the information in the results that appear on the first page. For ranking, search engines look at keyword usage, inbound links, freshness of content, mobile usability, page speed and many other factors. Apart from this, ranking can also go up or down depending on local search, your search history and your device. This ranking decides which web page will be suggested to you first. Google uses tools like BERT and RankBrain for ranking, which can interpret natural language. Because of these, search engines are able to understand the keywords as well as the intent of the user.
Earning from search results
Many search engines including Google earn money from search results. If you pay attention, you will find that whenever you search something in the search bar, along with the organic results, there is an ad written on the first one or two links. This is a pay-per-click model, where advertisers participate in bidding to show their results. That means search engines do auction for these ads. Based on the advertiser’s bid and quality score, his ad is shown first. Google alone earns billions every year through this method.
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