How a Google search finds and ranks an answer
Process map by Brian. 15 steps, 2 layers. Tags: technology, search, seo, internet.
- Web crawler: Follows links across the web all day
- Websites: Pages are fetched and read
- Search index: Page contents are stored in a giant index
- You: You type a question
- Ranking system: Understands what you mean, not only the words
- Search index: Pulls every page that might answer it
- Ranking system: Scores each page on relevance, quality, speed and links
- Ranking system: Adds your location and language
- You: Sees the top results in under a second
- You: Does the first result answer it?
- Websites: The site gets the visit