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More about Google.

● Google News
Most news services have editors reviewing stories.  But not Google.  Guess what: Algorithms are doing the work.  In Google's words, "There are no human editors at Google selecting or grouping the headlines and no individual decides which stories get top placement. This occasionally results in some articles appearing to be out of context." [Italics added.]

● How Does Google PageRank Work?
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Tutorial
Module 4: Effective Searching on the Web

More Google and the Blue Sky

Different search engines use variations of the algorithms described on the previous page.  If you think about it, you can see why one page answering the question "Why is the sky blue?" made it to the top of the list, and the page about the Blue Sky Farm was down in the 640th spot.

On the page at the top of Google's list, "Blue Sky - Why is the Sky Blue?":

  1. "Blue sky" and "sky blue" are in the title.

  2. "Sky blue" is in the first paragraph.

  3. "Sky" appears 23 times in this page.

  4. "Blue" appears 26 times.

  5. The two words appear next to each other five times.

  6. The two words appear within five words of each other three times.

  7. The URL is http://www.sciencemadesimple.com/sky_blue.html.

There is also the impact of PageRank, but we can't calculate it precisely.  We can just say that the top result must have many pages linking to it.

By contrast, in the web page for the Blue Sky Farm, the words "blue" and "sky" appear in the title and in three other spots, but they always appear in reverse order, "sky blue."  Plus, other words that are part of the explanation, such as "atmosphere," "sun," "light," "energy," "molecules," do not appear.  So the Blue Sky Farm link is not a good result, and appropriately, it is not high in the list.

But sometimes we get bad results at or near the top of the list.  For example, we asked Google, "How does google work?"

  1. First off, we're told (as you might expect): "how" is a very common word and was not included in your search."  This means that the search is really for "does Google work."

  2. While most of the results on the first page of results have some bearing on the question, the top result is a facetious explanation about "PigeonRank," in which pigeons are said to decide what the results of your search should be.

How to get better results for a search?  First off, try different search terms.

  • For example, now that you know about "google algorithms," a search using those words should produce better results than asking "How does Google work?.

  • Drop the "how" and "why" question words.  As you've seen they are usually ignored.

  • Now that you know about PageRank you could simply enter that as your search term.  In fact, a search on "pagerank" produces a number of solid hits, some of them quite technical, on the first page of results.

  • Often it helps to broaden or narrow your terms.  For example (using a different subject):

    • If "alternative energy" gives you too many hits, narrow it to something more precise, such as "soy fuel."

    • But if "soy fuel" is where you start and it seems too narrow, broaden it to something like "biofuels."

SUMMARY

As you can see, search engines are quite complex, so complex that even the explanations on these pages oversimplify a bit.  Nevertheless, a basic understanding of search engines will help you make better use of them.

Next, we'll look at a few more specifics about Google and search engines generally and then move on.
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