Navigating through the vast quantity of information available on the internet to find what you need would be virtually difficult without some assistance. Well, Google’s ranking systems are built to do exactly that assistance. Google Rankings filter through hundreds of billions of websites in its Search index in a fraction of a second to discover the most relevant, helpful results, and present them in a way that makes it easy for you to find what you’re searching for.
During a Search Off The Record podcast, Gary Illyes of Google, also described how Google ranks things. Illyes claims that Google reduces the number of pages that may rank for a particular query to a small number of pages, perhaps 1,000. Then some magic happens, and Google applies ranking signals, or “magic signals,” to that cut back list.
To begin with, Google considers interest and relevance based on the query and page content to produce the cut-down list. Gary further described how the search engine makes a list in reverse order. Then takes off the process of what they can’t list and come up with the 1,000 list (for example – maybe an arbitrary number Gary used).
Garry spells out that though the list has been prepared, the process of ranking the 1,000-strong list isn’t finished yet. He claims that this trimmed-down list contains “the magic,” or “magic signals” that are applied to the result set to improve it for the user’s query. As one example of magic signals, he highlighted RankBrain, but he also noted the HTTPS increase.
So, in a nutshell, Google shortlists the number of pages it may return for a particular user query, and then the ranking algorithm and magic algorithms operate inside that limit. Gary then goes into detail on how the cut-down list of sites is ranked, saying, “now ranking is number-based. Basically for each result, we will assign a number and we calculate that number using the signals that we collected during indexing plus the other signals. And then essentially, what you see in the results is a reverse order based on those numbers that we assigned.”
“The magic signals or magic algorithms that we use like RankBrain, what they do is multiply those numbers that we assign to each result by a number. Like for example, if they want to promote a result because it was determined that there would be a better result for lemon coconut cookie, then let’s say that it would multiply the result score by 2. Basically doubling its score, which means that it would jump up in the result set.”
Gary added “If we wanted to remove a result from the set for whatever reason, we could multiply its score with 0. Because then, that will turn the score to 0 and then like a score with 0, why would you present that?”
Gary then added that it is highly unlikely a page would have the same score. He added that is where the HTTPS boost comes in, which is a magic signal, but it is just a tie breaker and it is “a tiny, tiny boost.” The tie breakers would not rearrange the results unless there is a tie but only if there is a tie, otherwise it would not.
