When people think of Google they think of Google Search however, their search would not be worth a dime if it wasn’t for their PageRanking algorithm.
The PageRanking algorithm is used by Google Search to rank websites in their search engine results. PageRank was named after Larry Page, one of the founders of Google. PageRank is a way of measuring the importance of website pages. According to Google:
PageRank works by counting the number and quality of links to a page to determine a rough estimate of how important the website is. The underlying assumption is that more important websites are likely to receive more links from other websites.
It is not the only algorithm used by Google to order search engine results, but it is the first algorithm that was used by the company, and it is the best-known.
PageRank was developed at Stanford University by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1996 as part of a research project about a new kind of search engine. Sergey Brin had the idea that information on the web could be ordered in a hierarchy by “link popularity”: A page is ranked higher as there are more links to it. It was co-authored by Rajeev Motwani and Terry Winograd. The first paper about the project, describing PageRank and the initial prototype of the Google search engine, was published in 1998: shortly after, Page and Brin founded Google Inc., the company behind the Google search engine. While just one of many factors that determine the ranking of Google search results, PageRank continues to provide the basis for all of Google’s web search tools.
The name “PageRank” plays off of the name of developer Larry Page, as well as the concept of a web page. The word is a trademark of Google, and the PageRank process has been patented (U.S. Patent 6,285,999). However, the patent is assigned to Stanford University and not to Google. Google has exclusive license rights on the patent from Stanford University. The university received 1.8 million shares of Google in exchange for use of the patent; the shares were sold in 2005 for $336 million.
So Google Search can bring you the most accurate search mostly because of their Page Ranking Algorithm.
