WEBVTT - The Google Episode 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:02.880 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.200 --> 0:00:08.920 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With 0:00:09.080 --> 0:00:17.680 tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello everyone, 0:00:17.840 --> 0:00:20.520 and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poelette, 0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:22.320 and I am the tech editor here at how stuff 0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:25.320 works dot com. Sending across from me, as he always does, 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:29.120 is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. Hey there, and today we're 0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:31.800 going to talk about a very large company that, believe 0:00:31.800 --> 0:00:34.599 it or not, started with a BackRub. Yes it did. 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:36.920 But before we get too far into that, let's start 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:42.959 with a little listener mail. This listener mail comes from 0:00:43.000 --> 0:00:47.400 Alex from le Lexington, South Carolina, and Alex says, Hi, there, guys, 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:49.879 I'm a huge fan of the podcast What a Cliche? 0:00:50.040 --> 0:00:51.960 And I was wondering if you could do a podcast 0:00:52.000 --> 0:00:54.720 on Google. I'm an avid user of Google search Engine 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:56.720 and Gmail, but I was wondering about the company, it's 0:00:56.840 --> 0:00:59.640 history and other products like Android p s. Could you 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:01.320 work in a way to say listener mail the way 0:01:01.360 --> 0:01:04.360 you used to, Alex? I was going to do that, 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:06.600 but every time I do listener mail the old way, 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:09.479 we get a bunch of really negative reviews on iTunes 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:12.720 and uh and and my ego just can't take it anymore. 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:15.319 So if you really want to hear the old listener mail, 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:19.160 I suggest listening to an old episode. I know that's lame, 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:21.920 but I just don't. I'm tired of it. I don't. 0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:24.720 I can't take it anymore that the two factions are 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:26.399 battling it out of or whether or not to bring 0:01:26.440 --> 0:01:30.679 back that. Eventually one side will win definitively, and then 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:33.600 we will have the listener male sound effect established from 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:37.080 there on out. Alright, But in the meantime, let's move 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:40.920 on to Alex's topic, which is Google. Yeah, we would 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:43.479 we would probably have to do six or seven podcasts 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:46.319 to even get close to covering the entirety of Google. 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:49.960 So we really wanted to focus on Google the company. Yeah, 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:51.840 and we might talk a little bit about the search 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:55.480 engine specifically, and then you know, well we'll mention a 0:01:55.520 --> 0:01:58.840 few other things along the way, I'm sure, but let's 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:01.600 let's first start with the company that was founded back 0:02:01.680 --> 0:02:05.200 in nine Now that's even then, that's not going all 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:08.079 the way back to the very beginning of Google. If 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:10.560 you want to do that, you have to go into 0:02:10.560 --> 0:02:12.920 the time travel machine, you know, I said, we weren't 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:15.160 going to do sound effects. But you know what, Here 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:18.360 we go into the time travel machine criss car all right, 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:24.359 and we're just gonna set this back to the seatbelts broken, 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:35.840 just hold on, okay, all right? So yea fresh out 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:38.880 of college here I go. Um. So here we are 0:02:39.000 --> 0:02:43.040 at Stanford, Yes, and we're seeing the meeting for the 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:46.959 first time between Larry Page and Sergey Brenn. Actually, you 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:51.240 might expect the clouds to part and the heavenly multitude 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:57.720 to start singing. In reality, it's because Larry Page is 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:00.960 visiting the campus as a prospective student and Serge has 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:03.480 been asked to show him around. And not only that, 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:06.120 as you might be able to hear in the background, 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:10.840 the two don't really get along so well. Actually, we 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:13.880 weren't there at the first time that this happened. We're 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:16.840 only witnessing it now as a result of having our 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:21.720 own time machine. But Google is actually remarkably forthcoming about 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:24.800 about some of this early information. Yeah, apparently the two 0:03:24.880 --> 0:03:30.680 had some disagreements on pretty much absolutely everything they talked about. However, 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:34.240 let's let's jump back over here. Let's quick just do 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:41.840 a jump ahead by a year, all right, so so 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:45.360 now it's a year later and Larry and Serge are 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:49.080 both at Stanford as as grad students, and now they're 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:51.880 working on a project together. And Chris alluded to this 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:56.400 earlier in the episode. Yes, um, although it uh, it's 0:03:56.440 --> 0:03:59.360 kind of funny to imagine an actual company, especially one 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:02.800 in the size of Google, being called this. The original 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:05.400 version of the search engine was actually called back Rub 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:09.560 and it was located on the Stanford servers, which was 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:12.520 fine for a while until people actually started using it 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:15.320 and the traffic became too much for Stanford, which said 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:18.320 get out. Yeah, no, grant, this is back in nineties six. 0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:21.320 Bandwidth back then was different from them what it is today. 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:24.599 But yes, it was using up too much of the bandwidth. 0:04:24.680 --> 0:04:29.280 So Sarah, Gay and h and Larry, I just call 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:33.120 him that we're buds. You've been to one Google io event, 0:04:33.160 --> 0:04:36.080 and here I am calling the founders by the first name. Uh. 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:37.880 They have no idea who I am. They're kind of 0:04:37.880 --> 0:04:40.720 informal guys. Yeah, I hear that they're very nice. I've 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:43.280 never met either of them, but at any rate, they 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:47.080 decided that they're onto something here. And so the next year, 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:49.560 in fact, hey, let's let's go back to to modern 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:51.080 day and just talk about this in the past. It's 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:53.719 come too much jumping otherwise, I'm okay with all right, 0:04:53.800 --> 0:05:08.840 let's let's we're gonna just pop right onto m much better. Okay. 0:05:08.880 --> 0:05:13.880 So a year after they first started the BackRub project, 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:16.359 they decided that they wanted to try and make this 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:20.040 an actual business. And that's when they said, okay, well, 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:22.279 you know what, we probably need a different name, and 0:05:22.279 --> 0:05:25.400 they started to kind of pitch around different ideas for names. 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:29.560 They eventually came up with a play on a word 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:33.640 called that's Google, but Google spelled g o O g 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:37.039 O L. And what is a Google? It is a 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:39.800 one followed by a hundred zeros. That is a very 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:44.279 large number. It's it's ginormous, as they say, and it 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:50.599 actually alludes to their goal of trying to um organize 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:53.400 and identify all the information on the Internet, which was 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:56.359 a whole lot of it. Yeah, that this this brings 0:05:56.440 --> 0:05:58.880 us to the company's mission, and the mission has not 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:02.120 changed since at first was founded, and the mission is 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:06.880 to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:10.479 and useful. Now you may have also heard that Google 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:17.760 has an informal motto, which is don't be evil. Yes motto, 0:06:18.080 --> 0:06:20.159 especially when you're talking about a company that is getting 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:23.400 as large and pervasive as Google, you're gonna hope that 0:06:23.440 --> 0:06:26.360 they're not going to be evil. Um if they are evil, 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:31.400 they become Skynet. So uh so Google the whole idea 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:34.719 behind don't be evil falls into into two different realms. Really. 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:39.680 One is that they want to provide people with accessible 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:43.800 information and accurate information that is completely objective. So, in 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:47.680 other words, they want to give people search results based 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:50.800 upon what people want to find. They don't want to, 0:06:50.880 --> 0:06:53.719 you know, give preferential treatment to one company over another 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:57.320 because of some sort of relationship they have with that company. 0:06:57.320 --> 0:06:59.360 They want to be as objective as possible. That's that's 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:01.960 rule number one one. The second part of it is 0:07:02.360 --> 0:07:08.160 they must operate within the law. So if whatever they 0:07:08.200 --> 0:07:10.920 want to do would be against the law, that goes 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:14.840 against their motto, their informal motto of don't be evil. Uh. 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:19.640 This is actually actually became a very interesting subject recently 0:07:19.720 --> 0:07:24.080 when Google began to talk about the possibility of getting 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:27.840 out of China. Now, Google got into China back in 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:30.239 two thousand and six, and even when they were first 0:07:30.240 --> 0:07:33.400 going into China. UH executives were saying that it was 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:38.040 going to be an uneasy situation because in China, it's 0:07:38.040 --> 0:07:42.560 impossible for Google to follow both of those rules UH 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:45.800 to the letter to to not be evil, because in China, 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:51.240 the Chinese government is very specific about companies have to 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:55.200 be able to censor search results information that's coming into 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:58.720 the country. The government has a very strict view on 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:01.360 what can and cannot be allowed in right, and a 0:08:01.360 --> 0:08:04.080 lot of governments do this. China is not alone in this, 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:08.640 but China in particular has a pretty big net. Yes. 0:08:08.800 --> 0:08:11.679 I mean, they're known for having the Great Firewall of China, 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:14.240 which blocks lots and lots of information from getting into 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:19.960 the country. So in China, it's it was essentially impossible 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:23.880 to both follow the law and give people free access 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:29.720 to objective information. So for for nearly four years, Google 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:32.079 kind of struggled with this, and now it looks like 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:35.840 they may actually get out of that country due to 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:37.520 some other events which I guess we don't have to 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:40.880 really go into that. Actually, they actually didn't enter China 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:43.760 until fairly late because you know, as we were talking 0:08:43.800 --> 0:08:46.360 about it just a moment ago, you know, they were 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:51.040 really launching as a large commercial entity or on the 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:56.199 entity that would become the large commercial entity in UM. 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:59.000 But you know, they didn't actually get into China until 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:01.920 January of two thous and six, so that was actually 0:09:01.920 --> 0:09:04.200 sort of a late They were late to the market, 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:07.880 and they didn't make up a very large percentage of 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:10.680 the search market in China, unlike the rest of the world. 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:14.720 Now globally, Google makes up around sixty percent of the 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:18.840 search traffic, but in China it was much lower. UM 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:22.720 So some people have taken that opportunity to say that 0:09:22.920 --> 0:09:25.040 China that Google really got out of China because it 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:27.640 wasn't a particularly profitable business and it was a lot 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:29.920 of bad PR so it made a good PR move 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:32.600 to get out of China. I'm not quite that cynical. 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:36.920 I don't necessarily think that that was what was going 0:09:36.960 --> 0:09:39.520 through their the executive's minds when they finally said, you 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:41.400 know what, it's time for us to make a stand 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:44.240 on this. But I don't know for sure. I could 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:46.720 be I could be putting on the rose colored glasses 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:49.079 in this case. But let's uh, I guess we should 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:51.480 dial back the time just a little bit, kind of 0:09:51.520 --> 0:09:53.280 go through some of the other stuff that happened. Like 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:57.120 you mentioned, they became a company in So this is 0:09:57.200 --> 0:10:00.000 where all you people who who like to either play 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:02.960 a trivia or or run trivia games need to start 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:04.839 writing this stuff down, because we're gonna give you lots 0:10:04.840 --> 0:10:08.920 and lots of little trivia bits yep yep. Now. Um, actually, 0:10:09.320 --> 0:10:12.000 Google was sort of a darling of the industry very 0:10:12.040 --> 0:10:19.240 early on because in December, that's when PC magazine basically said, hey, 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:22.160 these guys are really onto something big and um they 0:10:22.200 --> 0:10:25.080 actually named it as one of the top hundred websites 0:10:25.520 --> 0:10:29.200 of um. And for a company that new on the 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:32.360 scene to take on somebody as large as Yahoo, I mean, 0:10:32.440 --> 0:10:35.240 Yahoo was the portal. They were the destination for people 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:37.199 who wanted to find stuff on the Internet at that point, 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:40.240 and um, you know, for somebody to come in out 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:43.640 of the blue and uh and take over and have 0:10:43.720 --> 0:10:46.679 them say, you know, hey, these guys have search down 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:49.560 pat If you want to find something, use Google. And 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:52.280 that's really remarkable, especially considering the fact that, I mean 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:56.280 even before Google became an actual entity, they got a 0:10:56.320 --> 0:11:01.520 hundred thousand dollars in funding. So you're about an upstart 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:05.400 company that, by the way, was housed in a garage. 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:07.920 I mean that we've seen this before. There are other 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:10.920 big companies that got their starting garages. I can think 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:13.120 of two off the top of my head, Microsoft and Apple. 0:11:14.240 --> 0:11:16.000 There you go another one. So you look at these 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:18.920 major companies, they started off in people's garages. Google is 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:21.880 no different. In fact this this would be surprising to me, 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:25.480 just because by I would have thought you've gotten past 0:11:25.559 --> 0:11:28.719 the point where anyone could create an upstart company that 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:32.160 could become a world power. But Google did it. Um, 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:35.400 or rather Larry and Sage managed to do it, and 0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:41.360 uh so they incorporate. Um, it's not until two thousand 0:11:41.440 --> 0:11:44.480 four that they go public, and once they go public, 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:49.240 they start, Uh there's I think they're training around eighty 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:52.560 five dollars of shares and the I p O went 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:57.640 live then and uh um, if you should actually look 0:11:57.679 --> 0:12:00.880 it up if you're curious to see exactly how much 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:02.880 money they intended to raise with their I p O, 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:06.720 because it's a very funny number. If my memory serves 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:08.880 me correctly, I didn't think about until just now, so 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:12.240 I didn't look at back up. But if I'm not mistaken, 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:15.720 they were looking to raise e you know, the mathematical 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:18.600 constant e. That's how much money they were attempting to raise. 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:21.560 I just looked at the I just looked up the 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:26.439 the number number that went uh, the actual number of shares, 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:30.520 and the amount per share that went h live on 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:33.240 August eighteenth, and that was eighty five dollars per share. 0:12:33.320 --> 0:12:35.520 So I was right. I can't believe I actually remembered correctly. 0:12:35.880 --> 0:12:39.240 And they and they opened with nineteen million, six hundred 0:12:39.280 --> 0:12:42.880 five thousand, fifty two shares of Class A common stock. 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:45.079 That's quite a few. That's a lot. Yeah, and it's 0:12:45.120 --> 0:12:48.439 gone up since then. Yeah. Actually this morning, the morning 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:51.280 that we are recording this podcast, it will be totally 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:53.560 different by the time you guys hear it. Just bear 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:55.320 that in mind. But this morning, when I looked it up, 0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:58.440 it was trading at five fifty nine dollars and twenty 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:01.520 cents per share. Yeah, that's a pretty big jump from 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:03.400 eighty five bucks. Yes, and I'm not sure if there 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:05.880 have been any splits one way or the other since then. 0:13:05.960 --> 0:13:12.480 So the company employees twenty nearly twenty thousand employees um 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:16.480 and the revenue for the lab for the third quarter 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:20.720 of two thousand nine nearly six billion, dollars in revenue 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:23.920 just for three months. That's not a year. That's three months, 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:27.080 six billion dollars. Now, the profit profit is what you 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:29.560 get when you take your revenue, you take your costs, 0:13:29.760 --> 0:13:33.440 you subtract the costs from the revenue. Profit was only tiny, 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:40.160 little three points seven billion, So you know, come on Google, seriously, 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:44.000 I'd settle for one billion of that, you know I would. 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:48.640 I would also settle for a billion. Um. Well, there's 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:52.160 there's so much to Google. So um, let's let's touch 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:54.040 on the search because that's the bread and butter of 0:13:54.080 --> 0:13:57.319 how Google got started. Sounds good. Um, Google does use 0:13:57.360 --> 0:14:00.920 spiders and crawlers to look for information on the interner it. Um, 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:03.080 they're very polite in the don't be evil sense, and 0:14:03.120 --> 0:14:05.760 that you can. You can actually have a spiders file 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:09.000 in your website and Google will if you tell them 0:14:09.040 --> 0:14:11.120 to stay away from it. I don't know why you 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:13.920 would do that. Well, if you've got a site that's 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:17.000 on the web, presumably you'd have it there so people 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:20.480 can find it. But you could do it, Yes, you could. 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:24.080 And there are companies that are talking about doing that. Uh. 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:26.160 In this case, we're talking about think companies that are 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:29.920 wanting to protect their their content from being displayed freely 0:14:29.960 --> 0:14:32.560 on Google before you they before they're given a chance 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:35.480 of charging you to get a glimpse at it. Yes, yes, 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:39.320 a number of publishers are actually considering blocking themselves, um 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:43.200 from Google's uh digital eyeballs so that they can be 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:44.680 the first to tell you what it is that they 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:47.520 have to say for a fee. And Google's response has 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:52.480 essentially been good luck with that. But um, it's not 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:57.120 really the search itself and cataloging the information that makes 0:14:57.160 --> 0:14:59.920 the difference for Google. It's actually the algorithm it uses 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:03.840 to display results on the search engine results. Page rank 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:08.880 situation is serups, UM, serups and s EO are going 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:11.440 to be big things that we talk about here. So 0:15:12.240 --> 0:15:17.640 page rank is an interesting system, and it's a secret system. 0:15:18.240 --> 0:15:21.200 It's a The algorithm that Google uses is secret and 0:15:21.200 --> 0:15:23.600 they tweak it all the time. And there are a 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:25.760 lot of different reasons to tweak it. One is just 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:28.320 that Google wants to make sure that the company is 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:31.200 providing the best search results possible whenever you're searching for 0:15:31.240 --> 0:15:35.520 any particular topic. Another is uh, the reason they tweak 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:39.520 it is is to avoid people gaming the system, like 0:15:39.600 --> 0:15:43.040 they don't want people to say, oh, Google looks for this, this, 0:15:43.120 --> 0:15:44.920 and this, So as long as we build that into 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:47.920 our site, we're gonna rank really well in Google. Now, 0:15:47.960 --> 0:15:50.440 why would you want to rank well in Google? Well, 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:52.920 you want to show up on the first page of 0:15:52.960 --> 0:15:57.320 the search results. Because people don't generally click very deeply 0:15:57.400 --> 0:15:59.200 into search results. You don't want to a lot of 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:01.840 people don't go to the eteenth and fifteenth and sixteenth pages. 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:04.080 Most people don't go to the page to Most people 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:06.080 look at the first the first few links that are 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:08.080 on the first page, which is what you get if 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:11.680 you click the I'm feeling lucky button. You go directly 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:14.680 to the very first link that Google has, and I 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:18.680 think the first non advertisement, because you can you can 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:22.440 become an advertiser with Google and they will put your 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:27.280 results as a sponsored result. This listed separately. It's under 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:30.960 a different color, so you can clearly see that one 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:33.280 of them is an advertisement, whereas one is just a 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:36.280 link that's pulled up through page rank. But yeah, the 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:38.280 first page rank result is the one that you can't 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:40.600 when you click on I'm feeling lucky. So how do 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:43.920 you rank well in Google? Well, the easy answer is 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:48.680 that you create a really really good website. Yes, uh, 0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:52.280 and that sounds like a pat answer, But in general, 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:55.440 that's exactly what Google is looking for. I mean, the 0:16:55.440 --> 0:17:00.360 the the things that Google looks at our incoming links 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:03.320 to your site, are other sites linking to your site, 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:08.720 because if they are, that's usually a sign of quality. Yeah. Um, back, 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:11.840 sorry to interrupt. And in the early days of s 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:15.040 c O or search engine optimization, UM, a lot of 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:19.400 people would try to overload their the code and their 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:24.159 websites with keywords, and sometimes they would put them. I 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:28.600 remember trying to bookmark pages that had dozens and dozens 0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:31.800 of keywords in the actual page title because they were 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:36.400 trying to load up. But um, Google doesn't necessarily pay 0:17:36.440 --> 0:17:40.400 attention to the number of keywords that you have in there, 0:17:40.800 --> 0:17:43.000 but it does look at where they are on the page, 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:45.919 and who's linking to you and to whom you're linking, 0:17:45.960 --> 0:17:49.159 and how old the site is, all sorts of little 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:52.119 bits and details that sort of tell you whether or 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:54.080 not this page really is what it is, or if 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:55.760 you're just trying to fool it by throwing in a 0:17:55.800 --> 0:17:58.280 whole bunch of keywords. And they look at the quality 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:00.240 of the links that are coming in as well. So 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:03.520 let's say that you have a website and you have 0:18:03.600 --> 0:18:06.439 a bunch of link farms. Link farms are these sites. 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:09.560 You've probably seen them. It's a site where it's just 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:13.680 a bunch of links to other sites. And the concept 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:15.960 here is you're trying to game the system. You're trying 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:18.040 to create all these different sites that are really just 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:20.760 a bunch of links so that they count towards the 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:23.520 link count and page ranks. Says oh, well, there are 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:25.720 all these websites that are linking to this page. This 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:27.720 page must be a good one, so I will rank 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:31.720 it higher. That's really irritating. Google actually gets around that 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:34.360 a little bit. So what they're looking for is they're 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:36.359 looking for the quality of the websites that are linking 0:18:36.359 --> 0:18:38.679 to you. If you have a website that has a 0:18:38.800 --> 0:18:42.919 hundred incoming links pointing at your website, but they're all 0:18:42.960 --> 0:18:47.240 from these really tiny websites or even link farms, it's 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:49.080 not going to do as well in page rank as 0:18:49.119 --> 0:18:53.240 a website that has five incoming links from really well 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:58.280 established websites. So let's say that your website has links 0:18:58.280 --> 0:19:01.000 coming into it from um don't Well, we'll see how 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:03.480 stuff works how Stuff Works is actually regarded as a 0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:09.680 very good website through Google UM as our websites like CNN, MSNBC, UM, 0:19:09.720 --> 0:19:12.440 like anything that's that's been around for a while. There's 0:19:12.520 --> 0:19:17.560 it's got a UH, an easily identifiable UH brand behind it. 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:21.119 That usually counts for a lot. UM. The sites are established, 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:24.359 they went on the net, people are linking to them, 0:19:25.080 --> 0:19:27.320 and so those those sites that do well in Google 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:31.879 already UM are considered trusted sites too. So that links 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:34.000 to you. Then that that's going to count more than 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:36.919 Joe Bob who has his you know, Joe Bobb's world 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:40.520 of the web. Until Joe Bob you know, is around 0:19:40.600 --> 0:19:42.600 and gets big and people know who he is and 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:45.520 stuff right, and then Joe Bob's kicking butt exactly yeah, 0:19:46.080 --> 0:19:49.000 and it can happen. And again, a lot of the 0:19:49.200 --> 0:19:51.880 UH a lot of the people out there who are 0:19:52.640 --> 0:19:55.560 saying that they can help you your website rank betteran 0:19:55.680 --> 0:19:59.880 Google UH we call the Search engine optimization or se 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:03.080 oh UM. There are little tricks you can do that 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:05.720 can help a little bit, but the best thing you 0:20:05.720 --> 0:20:10.879 can do is provide the most compelling, interesting and user 0:20:10.960 --> 0:20:15.000 friendly web experience you can UH. Make sure that your 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:18.359 data is relevant, make sure that that's presented in an 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:21.680 attractive way. That uh not. It shouldn't just be attractive, 0:20:21.680 --> 0:20:24.119 it should also be user friendly in the sense that 0:20:24.400 --> 0:20:26.760 you want it to be able. You want people using 0:20:26.760 --> 0:20:29.440 different browsers to be able to see it. So if 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:32.280 you create this really amazing website that has all these 0:20:32.320 --> 0:20:35.000 bells and whistles and special effects, but only the people 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:38.679 who are running the very latest web browsers can see it, 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:41.280 that's not gonna do so well for you when you're 0:20:41.359 --> 0:20:44.320 coming to Google page rank, because it's a lot of 0:20:44.320 --> 0:20:46.000 people just aren't even gonna link to you because they 0:20:46.000 --> 0:20:48.160 can't even see the stuff that's on your site. Yeah, 0:20:48.960 --> 0:20:51.760 and um, you know, if you do search engine optimization 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:54.919 correctly anyway, you're you're sort of helping Google out because 0:20:55.080 --> 0:20:58.119 you can you can give them a brief a brief 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:01.760 set of keywords and things that will help Google identify 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:04.320 what the page is actually about. Um, if you try 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:07.719 to overload it, it's it's going to register as noise 0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:09.960 to Google and will not help you. As a matter 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:12.399 of fact, it could actually put you farther down the list. 0:21:12.960 --> 0:21:16.040 But we should talk about the hardware to because I 0:21:16.040 --> 0:21:19.680 mean in order to do this, to operate this search engine, UM, 0:21:19.920 --> 0:21:22.399 you know, there have to be lots and lots and 0:21:22.440 --> 0:21:26.199 lots of computers involved. Yeah, and they're actually using very 0:21:26.359 --> 0:21:29.400 average machines when you when you look at it from 0:21:29.640 --> 0:21:33.760 UH server technology and Google's philosophy is that it's a 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:38.159 lot cheaper to replace a broken average machine than it 0:21:38.160 --> 0:21:41.240 would be to replace a broken state of the art machine. 0:21:41.720 --> 0:21:46.480 And if five average machines are the same cost collectively 0:21:46.640 --> 0:21:49.160 as one state of the art machine, and you're still 0:21:49.200 --> 0:21:53.240 getting an equivalent or even better amount of performance from 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:56.359 those five machines collectively, then it makes more sense to 0:21:56.359 --> 0:21:59.160 go with that. So the data centers at Google are 0:21:59.200 --> 0:22:03.960 filled with these these UH fairly average servers UM. Now 0:22:04.080 --> 0:22:05.960 a lot of them are configured in a very special 0:22:05.960 --> 0:22:09.000 way that Google has has kind of come up with, 0:22:09.080 --> 0:22:11.240 and you can actually read all about this. There are 0:22:11.880 --> 0:22:14.800 UM articles on the web that that talk about the 0:22:14.880 --> 0:22:17.800 kind of configuration that Google uses UH. And they have 0:22:17.840 --> 0:22:21.320 a very special file management system that allows the search 0:22:21.359 --> 0:22:24.800 engine to reference information very very quickly, which is why 0:22:24.840 --> 0:22:29.000 you don't have a big delay when you do a search. UM. 0:22:29.040 --> 0:22:31.439 And they have lots of them, thousands and thousands of 0:22:31.480 --> 0:22:33.840 these computers, and they also make lots and lots of 0:22:33.880 --> 0:22:37.200 redundant backups, so if any of these machines fails, it's 0:22:37.760 --> 0:22:41.320