If you pay close enough attention, you can learn all kinds of things from what Google does and doesn’t say in public. From patents to official statements, to comments that Googlers leave on message boards, there is a wealth of information out there that hints at what they really think. In this presentation, Will is going to work through some of the most significant official announcements and the most insight-heavy comments and leaks of Google’s first 20 years. You’ll come away from this presentation not only with a deeper understanding of the search giant, but also with the tools to understand and interpret future statements and leaks.

1. SearchLove San Diego 2018

2. Source

5. Links are how we
rank things

6. Please stop
manipulating the link
graph
Links are how we
rank things

7. Please stop
manipulating the link
graph
Links are how we
rank things
We’ll index
everything you put on
the internet

8. Please stop
manipulating the link
graph
Please stop putting
terrible content on
the internet
Links are how we
rank things
We’ll index
everything you put on
the internet

9. Please stop
manipulating the link
graph
Please stop putting
terrible content on
the internet
Links are how we
rank things
We’ll index
everything you put on
the internet
Just do what’s best
for users

10. Please stop
manipulating the link
graph
Please stop putting
terrible content on
the internet
Links are how we
rank things
We’ll index
everything you put on
the internet
Just do what’s best
for users
but also do sitemaps, hreflang,
robots.txt, upload feeds to GMB,
PLAs, write content on Google
my pages...

14. Yes, I know that’s the cathedral

15. Studying history gives us a deeper understanding of what happened,
why and lets us understand the present and forecast the future better.

19. Even Eric Schmidt was really a techie

20. Google founders’ IPO letter -- via excellent Danny Sullivan article

21. IPO filing

22. Source

24. For a search for [bill clinton]

25. Google relied on anchor text to determine this was a good answer

26. See Altavista’s Graph structure in the Web, 2000

27. Graph structure in the Web, 2000

28. Source

31. Source (2010)

34. Phew. Carry on doing no evil.

36. Source

37. Source

38. Source

45. Snow
den
revelations

48. Source

49. Source (2007)

50. Source

51. Source

52. See this comment from a user called Kris Maglione (@KMag). More in my moz post

53. Source
discovering selecting

54. Source

55. Transformic

58. Source

62. -- Eric Schmidt (Google’s CEO at the time), speaking in 2008

63. Facebook announcement on “Trusted Sources”

64. 2003
Florida
First big anti-spam update
2009
Vince
Favor big brands
2011
Panda / Farmer
Crack down on thin content and
content farms.
2012
Penguin
“Over optimization” penalty
including stronger algorithmic
treatment of low quality or
manipulative links
2014
Pigeon
Integrate local and core search
2015
Mobilegeddon
Pre-announced
mobile-friendliness update
Source

65. 2009
Caffeine
Integrate indexation and ranking in
near real-time.
2013
Hummingbird
Enable integration of more ML into
the core algorithm.
2003
Fritz
Google Dance is replaced by
“Everflux”
2005
Big Daddy
URL canonicalization and 301/302
redirect handling.
Source

66. Eric Schmidt on CNBC’s “Inside the Mind of Google”, 2009 via EFF

67. 19 year-old Mark Zuckerberg

69. W
e entered
a new
era

72. How well does result relevance predict session satisfaction? [2007]

73. user's total search time
compare two different search algorithms

74. Source

75. Source

76. See for example this comment from a user called Kevin Lacker (@lacker)
And then tweaked and tweaked the algo

77. Source

78. Source

79. most location-based searches
are conducted while in the presence of others

80. Source (and similar for adolescents)

81. Developing searcher
Domain-specific
searcher
Power searcher
Non-motivated
searcher
Distracted
searcher
Visual searcher
Rule-bound
searcher

82. A 7-year old child is searching for dolphins. “...I don’t know how to spell it....[Types the letters: ‘d-o’] There’s no dolphin

83. Developing searcher
Domain-specific
searcher
Power searcher
Non-motivated
searcher
Distracted
searcher
Visual searcher
Rule-bound
searcher

84. Led me down all kind of rabbit holes:
voice searches like [how old is the president] work inconsistently

87. This is a surprisingly hard task

89. Rachel, 8

90. Adam, 5 ½

97. W
e m
issed
this

99. Here

101. Source

102. Source

106. Here

109. Source

110. Source

111. I have talked about this before - SearchLove Boston 2016

114. not
[previously] been observed in ranking for information retrieval
Source: Neural Ranking Models with Weak Supervision

115. +35% improvement over training algorithm
Source [2017]

122. Do googlers get recognition / promotions from shipping them?

132. "Best 25+ ideas about hairstyles" almost works
"Best 25+ ideas about animals" is a little more tenuous

133. Source

134. Source

135. Source
Under the rules, search engines will ...
need to provide companies with “upfront”
information about how their ranking
algorithm works and assurances that “that
the ranking is conducted in good faith”.

136. Source
They will ... need to tell businesses if they
can pay to bump up their prominence in
search results.

137. Source
Platforms will have to provide “a clear
statement of reasons” if they delist or
suspend a company from their website,
allowing the possibility of legal challenges.

138. Source
They would also need to offer businesses
... a formal complaint process if they were
demoted or de-listed without explanation.

145. They’ve been working on this kind of problem since at least 2007. See
the paper entitled A fact/opinion classifier for news articles

146. Source

147. Source

148. Source

149. Source

150. We will still be using screens and keyboards in 2023
See my prediction 5 years ago

152. The best kind of correct. But self-interested, or not real-world-oriented.

153. Site speed. https. Mobile friendliness. AMP.

154. Patents. Papers. Fora. Social media. Acquisitions. Stock market.
Lawsuits.

157. Source

158. Source

159. Source

161. Source

162. Source

164. Source

165. Source

166. Source

167. AgentRank patented in 2007. Authorship program started in 2011.
Discontinued in 2014

168. Source [2011]

169. Source [2014]

170. Source

171. Source

172. α
α
makes PageRank even
less predictive as a model of attention distribution
while
this is very helpful in controlling manipulation of PageRank
it can have troubling social consequences
Source

173. ●
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