Google explains search ranking technologies

17/07/2008

Google has taken further steps to open up about how it compiles its search rankings, in news that may be of interest to those engaging in search engine optimisation.

Writing on the official Google blog, Google fellow Amit Singhal explained that the search engine has invested much in improving its crawl and indexing system, as well as developing technology to associate non-obvious but important concepts to a page.

He gave the example of Google having a listing for the Sprovieri Gallery in London when the Italian search term 'galleria sprovieri londra' is entered, despite the official gallery page failing to feature the words London or Londra.

Mr Singhal also stated that the search engine has taken steps to understand queries better, developing a spelling suggestion system and an advanced synonyms system, among others.

On understanding users, he said: "Our work on interpreting user intent is aimed at returning results people really want, not just what they said in their query.

"This work starts with a world class localisation system and adds to it our advanced personalisation technology."

Earlier this month, Mr Singhal said in another blog post that Google does not manually intervene when it comes to search rankings, as this does not fit with its core philosophies.