Google Reveals Tweaks to Its Search Algorithm

Google revealed 10 recent changes to its search algorithm that affect results as diverse as those that are date-specific and those that are in Hindi.

Google makes more than 500 changes to its search algorithm each year. Most are tiny and some — including a recent one that added real-time results for a third of search queries — affect a large proportion of searches. But Google rarely publicizes its algorithm changes. One reason: It does not want to give hints to the Web sites that try to game the algorithm so that their links show up higher in results. Google chose to reveal these changes because they are less susceptible to gaming, Matt Cutts, a distinguished engineer at Google who works on search quality, wrote in a company blog post. There is also another reason that Google is shedding some light on the black box of its algorithm. It is under fire from government regulators who are investigating it for antitrust violations. One of their main concerns is how little Google reveals about how search works, even though changes in the algorithm can drastically affect Web businesses. One of the new changes will affect searches in languages for which there is little Web content available, including Afrikaans, Hindi and Icelandic. Google will now translate relevant Web pages written in English and show those results, too.