[Air-L] Google Search Algorithms

Alex Halavais alex at halavais.net
Mon Apr 16 07:49:36 PDT 2012


It is a mystery! Seriously: how Google finds and ranks sites--no
matter what people tell you--is a closely guarded and frequently
changed secret.

That said, they might be interested in an article on PageRank:

http://ilpubs.stanford.edu:8090/422/1/1999-66.pdf

There are a variety of lists of signals that Google probably, maybe,
could, almost certainly, might use out there on the web:

http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors
http://www.webpronews.com/google-ranking-signal-2011-08
http://searchengineland.com/what-social-signals-do-google-bing-really-count-55389
(I guess) http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.google.com/en/us/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf

For a (somewhat dated) broad overview of how search engines do what
they do, perhaps:

Witten, Gori, & Numerico, Web Dragons: Inside the Myths of Search
Engine Technology, Morgan Kaufman, 2006.

For a even more accessible version (and also sadly a bit dated), I
might immodestly suggest the first chapter of:

Halavais, Search Engine Society, Polity, 2008.

Best,

Alex








On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 10:31 AM, Andrew Herman <aherman at wlu.ca> wrote:
> All Hail Fellow Aoiristas!
>
> I have some students who are looking for background reading on how the
> Google search algorithms work.  Any suggestions here would be most
> welcome.
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Andrew
>
> Andrew Herman, Ph. D.
> Associate Professor and Chairperson
> Department of Communication Studies
> Graduate Program in Cultural Analysis and Social Theory
> Wilfrid Laurier University
> Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3C5
> CANADA
> 519 884-1970 x3693
>
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