How Google’s Algorithm Works?

Some­thing about the mag­ic of Google is so fas­ci­nat­ing and far-reach­ing that the algorithm’s inner-work­ings often go mis­un­der­stood or left entire­ly undis­cov­ered by searchers and web­site hosts. And yet, every­one using the search engine is sub­ject to the evo­lu­tions of its rank­ing system.

So, how exact­ly does Google’s algo­rithm work? 

You’re def­i­nite­ly not alone in won­der­ing about what mys­ter­ies are unrav­el­ing behind the scenes of the search engine conglomerate’s con­sumer-fac­ing window. 

Con­sis­tent­ly through­out the year, we are sub­ject to changes in the search algo­rithm, but real­ly — how many of us actu­al­ly know what’s going back there?

Let’s take a look at how Google’s algorithm functions:

Google works like an old school phone book. You need a trust­wor­thy ser­vice provider, and Google pro­vides you the best ven­dors in your area with imme­di­ate con­tact infor­ma­tion. But in tran­si­tion­ing from a search that once took place in a bound paper book, Google has dig­i­tized and enabled its algo­rithm to deter­mine what you’re real­ly look­ing for when you search and which brands are actu­al­ly best suit­ed for your (you, as a per­son) par­tic­u­lar needs.

How can the search engine fac­tor in so many mov­ing pieces behind the scenes, and pro­duce a per­fect­ly accu­rate result in less than a sec­ond to its 40,000 search­es per second?

How Google’s Algorithm Works

Step 1: Word analysis

First, Google has a com­plex (and con­stant­ly evolv­ing) sys­tem for decod­ing your lan­guage. It can decode mis­spelled words, mis­placed words, con­ver­sa­tion­al lan­guage and oth­er pos­si­ble mean­ings for words used to deter­mine exact­ly what type of infor­ma­tion it is you are looking.

If you can remem­ber far enough back to Google search phras­es con­joined by an addi­tion sym­bol, you like­ly remem­ber the days of mod­er­ate­ly rel­e­vant to irrel­e­vant URL links that ren­dered your search a re-do. You tried again until you found a phrase that Google under­stood well enough to find you the best information. 

Today, it’s almost always with­in your first phrase or ques­tion that Google gets the right results. 

Step 2: Search the index

Once Google knows the infor­ma­tion you need, the algo­rithm crawls through its index, which is like a giant data­base for all the tens of mil­lions of web­sites avail­able to the engine. It locates the sites that con­tain your key­word in the body, head­ings and sub­head­ings so it knows which pages are most like­ly to answer your question. 

Step 3: Find the best match

The index pro­vides infor­ma­tion beyond key­word match­es, such as web­site qual­i­ty, con­tent sched­ule and popularity/authority to help the algo­rithm choose the best site match.

Step 4: Personalization 

As Google search­es for the best infor­ma­tion-based web­site, it will pull from your pre­vi­ous brows­ing his­to­ry, geo­graph­ic loca­tion and set­tings to deter­mine which site pro­vides your ide­al web­site experience.

Step 5: Delivery

Next, Google deliv­ers you the most rel­e­vant, engag­ing and enter­tain­ing content. 

Now that you know how the algo­rithm works, it’s impor­tant to keep up with the changes. The best advice for moti­vat­ing your­self to stay up-to-date with Google’s search algo­rithm is to remem­ber that Google is a busi­ness, too. And like you, it has cus­tomers to please, to impress and to retain for the long haul. 

Changes made to Google’s algo­rithm are in response to con­sumer search habits and pre­dic­tive mar­ket behav­iors. Wher­ev­er Google can pro­vide a bet­ter infor­ma­tion search expe­ri­ence, it will adjust its algo­rithms and plat­form, accordingly. 

To learn more about Google search and the com­plex algo­rithm fuel­ing the val­ue of your online real estate, reach out to our team at Rosy Strate­gies. We look for­ward to meet­ing you!