# How does Google work? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 2, 2002, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-google-work/140031 "2002-12-02T20:43:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Spiff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiff/32/9852_2.png) [@Spiff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiff)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-google-work/140031/1 "2002-12-02T20:43:37Z")
How does Google work? By that, I mean how does it work so _quickly_? I type in, for example, “Maris Roger asterisk home run record” press return, and in less that a quarter of a second (0.18 seconds, to be exact), I get pages and pages of clickable links for websites that have info on Roger Maris’ record-setting home run season in 1961. How the ^#@#!\*& does Google manage to sort my query so fast? The searchable database of keywords maintained by Google must be **immense** , and it boggles my mind that it can be searched so quickly. And not only that, but the search results are almost instantly constructed into an HTML-formatted webpage for me to view. How does Google do it? ---
**Author:** ![lno](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a8b319/32.png) [@lno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lno)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-google-work/140031/2 "2002-12-02T21:01:40Z")
[Pigeons.](http://www.google.com/technology/pigeonrank.html) ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-google-work/140031/3 "2002-12-02T21:29:16Z")
Google has a spidering program which periodically goes through gazillions of pages on the web and indexes them. The exact nature of the index is a closely guarded secret, but typical indexing techniques involve removing pronouns, conjunctions and other common words, and building a database of what terms appear at what URLs with the most frequency. This is how most basic search engines work, though Google goes a bit further. When you submit a query, Google looks in their index for all the pages that contain the words you entered. It then looks in another index to see how many pages in that group link to other pages in that group. Google assumes that the most linked-to pages are the best, and puts them first in the list. As for speed, it comes down to two things: 1. Very efficient algorithms. 2. A really really really really big number of very very fast servers. ---
**Author:** ![Kwyjibo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/59ef9b/32.png) [@Kwyjibo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kwyjibo)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-google-work/140031/4 "2002-12-02T21:37:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by lno \* > \*\*[Pigeons.](http://www.google.com/technology/pigeonrank.html) \*\* ROFL! I almost smacked my chin off of my desk as I fell of my chair! THANKS LNO! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![DarrenS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/977dab/32.png) [@DarrenS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DarrenS)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-google-work/140031/5 "2002-12-02T22:53:37Z")
This was already discussed recently [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=142689&highlight=Google).