In a recent disclosure, Gary Illyes of Google explained the company’s method of processing search queries and ranking online content. Main aim is to provide reliable, high-quality, and relevant search results to the users.
Illyes stressed the essential role of algorithms in ranking webpages on Google’s search engine. These algorithms take into account various aspects like content relevance, expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness, and overall user experience on a website.
Beyond just the semantics, the ‘relevance’ also considers users’ specific intention, past search activities, subject’s relevance, and geographic location. This way, a search is not just about keywords, but also about search patterns and preferences, subject context, and regional/cultural context.
The ranking process starts with understanding the search query, which includes removal of ‘stop words’ except when they are crucial for the sentence meaning. Further, the algorithm checks for keyword usage, relevance, and location. The search query expands to include synonyms, related concepts, and even different languages.
Decoding Google’s online content ranking process
This allows more relevant and varied search results.
The fully processed query then goes through ranking in the Google index. Many factors, such as user relevance, content significance, geographic location, language and device type are considered. The selected results are compiled and sent back to the user in a specific order of relevance.
Illyes highlighted the importance of webpage’s quality, content originality, and overall internet relevance in ranking. Also, he stressed the significance of understanding user intent while evaluating content relevance. Other factors affecting ranking include webpage loading speed, mobile-friendliness, and content update frequency. Despite various factors in play, Illyes concluded that a site’s credibility and authority remain fundamental for its search ranking.
