Search results
Uncover what Google Search is, how it works, and the approach Google has taken to make the world’s information accessible to everyone.
- Our approach
Ads are how Search remains accessible to everyone. But ads...
- How Search works
How Google Search works. Every time you search, there are...
- Features
Every year, we see trillions of searches. Google's search...
- Our history
Since our launch in 1997, Google Search has continued to...
- Detecting Spam
Google invests in systems to ensure that sites don’t rise in...
- Focus on The User
Search isn’t static. We’re constantly improving our systems...
- Our approach
How Search works. . Organizing information. . Ranking results. . Rigorous testing. . Detecting spam. . Features. . Our history. . Our approach to Search. . People around the world turn to Search to find information, learn about topics of interest, and make important decisions.
- A Few Notes Before We Get Started
- Introducing The Three Stages of Google Search
- Crawling
- Indexing
- Serving Search Results
Before we get into the details of how Search works, it's important to note that Google doesn't accept payment to crawl a site more frequently, or rank it higher. If anyone tells you otherwise, they're wrong. Google doesn't guarantee that it will crawl, index, or serve your page, even if your page follows the Google Search Essentials.
Google Search works in three stages, and not all pages make it through each stage: 1. Crawling:Google downloads text, images, and videos from pages it found on the internet with automated programs called crawlers. 2. Indexing:Google analyzes the text, images, and video files on the page, and stores the information in the Google index, which is a la...
The first stage is finding out what pages exist on the web. There isn't a central registry of all web pages, so Google must constantly look for new and updated pages and add them to its list of known pages. This process is called "URL discovery". Some pages are known because Google has already visited them. Other pages are discovered when Google fo...
After a page is crawled, Google tries to understand what the page is about. This stage is called indexing and it includes processing and analyzing the textual content and key content tags and attributes, such as elements and alt attributes, images, videos, and more. During the indexing process, Google determines if a page is a duplicate of ...
When a user enters a query, our machines search the index for matching pages and return the results we believe are the highest quality and most relevant to the user's query. Relevancy is determined by hundreds of factors, which could include information such as the user's location, language, and device (desktop or phone). For example, searching for...
How Search works. . Organising information. . Ranking results. . Rigorous testing. . Detecting spam. . Features. . Our history. . Our mission is to organise the world’s information and make it...
It allows users to search for information on the Internet by entering keywords or phrases. Google Search uses algorithms to analyze and rank websites based on their relevance to the search query. It is the most popular search engine worldwide. As of 2020, Google Search has a 92% share of the global search engine market. [3] .
