[Air-L] Google Search Algorithms

[Hal Roberts]

Hi Andrew,

There are also some really interesting blog posts by Google on the 
process they use to refine their search algorithms:

Huffman, Scott. “Search Evaluation at Google.” Official Google Blog, 
September 15, 2008. 
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/search-evaluation-at-google.html.

Singhal, Amit. “Official Google Blog: Introduction to Google Ranking.” 
Official Google Blog, July 9, 2008. 
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/introduction-to-google-ranking.html.

Singhal, Amit. “Official Google Blog: Technologies Behind Google 
Ranking.” Official Google Blog, July 16, 2008. 
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/technologies-behind-google-ranking.html.

Google, Inc. “Quality Scores and Ad Auctions.” Official Google Blog, 
2008. 
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/quality-scores-and-ad-auctions.html.

The most interesting take away from the above posts is that the most 
important input into Google's ranking algorithms are the reactions of 
its own users.

This is not directly about search algorithms, but below is a court 
ordered expert report on how Google's click fraud detection worked in 
2006.  Dr. Tuzhilin was given complete access to the people and code in 
the click fraud department and then wrote a report based on his access 
but not including confidential details of their processes and 
algorithms.  He basically found (contra the plaintiffs suing Google) 
that Google was honestly trying to detect and prevent click fraud.  It 
may be about as close as we get to an insider view to what's actually 
going on inside Google's core search and advertising algorithms.

Tuzhilin, Alexander. The Lane’s Gifts Vs. Google Report. Court ordered, 
July 21, 2006. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/pdf/Tuzhilin_Report.pdf.

-hal

-- 
Hal Roberts
Fellow
Berkman Center for Internet & Society
Harvard University

On 4/17/12 9:22 AM, Neal Thomas wrote:
>
> Hi Andrew;
>
> I found the following book to be helpful when describing both the steps
> to produce a search engine, and PageRank-style techniques:
>
> Langville, Amy N., and C. D. Meyer. Google's Pagerank and Beyond : The
> Science of Search Engine Rankings. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
> Press, 2006.
>
> It starts at a relatively layperson level of explanation, getting
> progressively more opaque as you go along, in terms of the computer
> science.
>
> Others you may find helpful if they haven't already been mentioned:
>
> Chakrabarti, S.; Dom, B.E.; Kumar, S.R.; Raghavan, P.; Rajagopalan, S.;
> Tomkins, A.; Gibson, D.; Kleinberg, J. "Mining the Web's Link
> Structure." Computer 32, no. 8 (August 1999 1999): 60-67.
> Hansell, Saul. "Google Keeps Tweaking Its Search Engine." The New York
> Times, June 3, 2007 2007.
> Levy, Steven. "How Google’s Algorithm Rules the Web." Wired, March 2010.
> Segaran, Toby. "Programming Collective Intelligence Building Smart Web
> 2.0 Applications." Sebastapol, Calif.: O'Reilly, 2007.
>
> Regards,
> Neal
>
>
> Neal Thomas, PhD
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Communication Studies
> UNC Chapel Hill
> ----
> http://www.hivemedia.ca/
>
>
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-- 
Hal Roberts
Fellow
Berkman Center for Internet & Society
Harvard University