Secrets of Google's Famous Search Algorithm

(MoneyWatch)  Quick!

What happens every 16 hours or so all year long, that has a significant impact on you and millions of others, but that you know virtually nothing about?

If you answered "Google updates its search algorithm," congratulations. Please go to the head of the class.

After spending some quality time at the search giant's headquarters in Mountain View, Wired's Steven Levy shines a rare light under the hood of the world's most important search tool, and here's what he finds:

• There will be approximately 550 improvements to Google's algorithm this year.
• Each modification is tested in multiple markets and languages before being implemented.
• In what Google refers to as "search quality," the company has iterated to achieve a type of intelligence in its algorithm that possesses a "seemingly magical ability to interpret searchers' requests -- no matter how awkward or misspelled."
• Google's algorithm started, of course, with PageRank, the system invented in 1997 by co-founder Larry Page (and named after him) while he was still a graduate student at Stanford. PageRank rated web pages based on the number and importance of links that pointed to them, using the "collective intelligence of the Web itself to determine which sites were most relevant."
• The search algorithm currently uses around 200 different "signals," including page elements like titles, freshness, terms appearing in hyperlinks, and other attributes to provide contextual clues that contribute to today's equivalent of PageRank.
• Synonyms are very important in Google's ability to deliver good results.
• The credibility of recognized experts is also important.
• In searches for names (8 percent of all searches), bi-gram breakages matter.

There's a lot more in this excellent piece, but the bottom line is that Google maintains a wide lead over any potential competitors in the search field.The only credible threat to Google's dominance in search is Microsoft's Bing, which may be superior in certain verticals like real-time flight information as well as some health, reference and shopping sectors.