Google Redefines ‘How Search Works’ Website

Google has updated its “How Search Works” website which contains information on how Google organizes, ranks and tests search results.

The website launched in 2016 and explains the inner workings of Google’s search engine in a way even non-SEOs can understand.

It is an ideal resource to send to clients who have little or no knowledge of research. On the other hand, as a Search Engine Journal reader, you might find the information a bit basic.

One thing that makes the site worth checking out is the annual updates on search changes. The How Search Works site is updated annually with the latest data on Google’s tests and search results ratings.

The site currently includes data for 2020, a year when Google ran:

• 4,887 launches in search results
• 17,323 live traffic experiences
• 383,605 research quality tests
• 62,937 side-by-side experiences

If you’ve ever visited Google’s How Search Works site, it’s the one that has changed since you last saw it.

Google is redefining how search works – what’s new?

Google announces the launch of a “completely redesigned” website about how search works. Cosmetically speaking, this appears to be true.

I spent some time going through the redesigned site and comparing it side by side with a cached version. After trying to find some useful new information to glean from the new version, I was unable to discover any changes in the content itself.

While the content has been changed and the wording has been changed, there is nothing new to be learned.

The updated site has all the same information, it’s just presented in a different way. To Google’s credit, however, the layout changes come with improvements in usability.

There are far fewer clicks in the new way search works. Take the old page on search features, for example. Here’s what it looked like before:

Screenshot from web.archive.org, August 2021.

As a visitor, you will need to click on each one individually to learn more, then click on your browser’s back button and click on another until you have browsed them all.

Google’s new page on search features lets you consume all content seamlessly by scrolling the page. No click needed.

In all fairness, although I couldn’t find any new information on the updated site, what was already there was more than enough

After writing an entire article announcing the overhaul, Google’s Danny Sullivan broke the news on Twitter also, which made it seem like a major change.

If you looked at the site thinking, “what’s up? The answer is: not a lot!

It’s the kind of update that probably would have gone unnoticed if Google hadn’t said anything about it.

You can judge for yourself by browsing the updates on the How Search Works site.