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Wouldn't it be great to understand exactly how Google decides to rank websites? And wouldn't it be even better if the information on Google search rankings came from a true ''insider'' at Google? Well if the Google blog is to be believed, the company has begun an effort to do just that. Udi Manber, a Vice President of Engineering at Google is part of the team called 'Search Quality'. Search Quality is the name of the team responsible for the ranking of Google search results. That is, when you type a search query into the search box at Google and hit enter, the Search Quality team is responsible to decide within a fraction of a second which among the billions of pages on the web to display, and in what order.

So according to this post in the Official Google Blog, the company has decided to share more information with those outside Google about exactly how its search rankings are determined. As anyone who has tried to get a website ranked at Google for any relatively popular term can tell you, the exact process of how Google ranks pages has been intentionally shrouded in mystery since the company was founded. However, in the blog post Mr. Manber declares, ''But being completely secretive isn't ideal, and this blog post is part of a renewed effort to open up a bit more than we have in the past. We will try to periodically tell you about new things, explain old things, give advice, spread news, and engage in conversations. Let me start with some general pieces of information about our group. More blog posts will follow.''

The rest of the piece doesn't reveal anything particularly new about the ranking process.

So why on earth would Google be telling us about how rankings are formulated? And why do it now? What is to be gained?

Perhaps as the company has become nearly monopolistic in search, there is added pressure to assure the outside world that the search results are truly independent of any internal manipulation. It's no secret that a top Google ranking for a highly trafficked term, for instance ''web hosting'', is worth thousands of dollars per day. There is also the prestige and brand equity that comes with a number one ranking at Google.

So how do we know that Google's ranking system is ''fair''?

We don't. For all we know, influential insiders at Google have sent around an internal memo that reads in part, ''When in doubt, just put the Wikipedia entry for the search term at the top of the results...''. Of course that's not what would lead to the most relevant search results, but then again the search industry is completely unregulated. If Google wanted to, they could rank www.thewhir.com as the number one result for ''web hosting''. So why don't they?

Perhaps Mr. Manber's next blog post will shed some light on that subject.

This content appears courtesy of HostMySite.com.