{"id":16594,"date":"2026-09-02T11:40:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T08:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/google-bilgi-bankasi\/ranking-systems\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T00:52:19","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T21:52:19","slug":"ranking-systems","status":"publish","type":"ar_kb","link":"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/google-bilgi-bankasi\/ranking-systems\/","title":{"rendered":"A guide to Google Search ranking systems"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n  Google uses automated ranking systems that<br \/>\n  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/search\/howsearchworks\/how-search-works\/ranking-results\/\" class=\"external-link\">look at many factors and signals<\/a><br \/>\n  about hundreds of billions of web pages and other content in our Search index to present the<br \/>\n  most relevant, useful results, all in a fraction of a second.<br \/>\n  This page is a guide to understanding some of our more notable ranking systems. It covers some<br \/>\n  systems that are part of our core ranking systems, which are the underlying technologies that<br \/>\n  produce search results in response to queries. It also covers some systems involved with specific<br \/>\n  ranking needs.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Our ranking systems are designed to work on the page level, using a variety of signals and<br \/>\n  systems to understand how to rank individual pages. Site-wide signals and classifiers are also<br \/>\n  used and contribute to our understanding of pages. Having some good site-wide signals does not<br \/>\n  mean that all content from a site will always rank highly, just as having some poor site-wide<br \/>\n  signals does not mean all the content from a site will rank poorly.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  We regularly improve our ranking systems through<br \/>\n  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/search\/howsearchworks\/how-search-works\/rigorous-testing\/\" class=\"external-link\">rigorous testing and evaluation<\/a><br \/>\n  and provide notice of<br \/>\n  <a href=\"https:\/\/status.search.google.com\/products\/rGHU1u87FJnkP6W2GwMi\/history\" class=\"external-link\">updates to our ranking systems<\/a><br \/>\n  when those might be useful to content creators and others.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  You can also visit our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/search\/howsearchworks\/\" class=\"external-link\">How Search Works site<\/a><br \/>\n  to understand how our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/search\/howsearchworks\/how-search-works\/ranking-results\/\" class=\"external-link\">ranking systems<\/a>,<br \/>\n  combined with other processes, work together so that Google Search delivers on our mission to<br \/>\n  organize the world&#8217;s information and make it universally accessible and useful.\n<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"bert\" tabindex=\"-1\">BERT<\/h2>\n<p>\n  Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (<a href=\"https:\/\/blog.google\/products\/search\/how-ai-powers-great-search-results\/\" class=\"external-link\">BERT<\/a>)<br \/>\n  is an AI system Google uses that allows us to understand how combinations of words express<br \/>\n  different meanings and intent.\n<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"crisis-info\" tabindex=\"-1\">Crisis information systems<\/h2>\n<p>\n  Google has developed systems to provide helpful and timely information during times of crisis,<br \/>\n  whether those involve personal crisis situations, natural disasters, or other wide-spread<br \/>\n  crisis situations:\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Personal crisis:<\/b> Our systems work to understand when people are seeking<br \/>\n    information about personal crisis situations to display hotlines and content from trusted<br \/>\n    organizations for certain queries related to suicide, sexual assault, poison ingestion,<br \/>\n    gender-based violence, or drug addiction. Learn more about how<br \/>\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/websearch\/answer\/9988513\" class=\"external-link\">personal crisis information is displayed in Google Search<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><b>SOS Alerts: <\/b>During times of natural disasters or wide-spread crisis<br \/>\n    situations, our SOS Alerts system works to show updates from local, national, or<br \/>\n    international authorities. These updates may include emergency phone numbers and websites,<br \/>\n    maps, translations of useful phrases, donation opportunities, and more. Learn more about<br \/>\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/sosalerts\/\" class=\"external-link\">how SOS Alerts work<\/a> and how they&#8217;re part<br \/>\n    of Google&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/crisisresponse.google\/forecasting-and-alerts\/\" class=\"external-link\">crisis alerts<\/a><br \/>\n    that help in times of floods, wildfires, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other disasters.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 id=\"deduplication\" tabindex=\"-1\">Deduplication systems<\/h2>\n<p>\n  Searches on Google may find thousands or even millions of matching web pages. Some of these<br \/>\n  may be very similar to each other. In such cases, our systems show only the most relevant<br \/>\n  results to avoid unhelpful duplication. Learn more about<br \/>\n  <a href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/websearch\/answer\/9603785\" class=\"external-link\">how deduplication works and how to see omitted results<\/a><br \/>\n  if desired, when deduplication happens.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Deduplication also happens with <a href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/websearch\/answer\/9351707\" class=\"external-link\">featured snippets<\/a>.<br \/>\n  If a web page listing is elevated to become a featured snippet, we don&#8217;t repeat the listing<br \/>\n  later on the first page of results. This declutters the results and helps people locate relevant<br \/>\n  information more easily.\n<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"exact-match\" tabindex=\"-1\">Exact match domain system<\/h2>\n<p>\n  Our ranking systems consider the words in domain names as one of many factors to determine if<br \/>\n  content is relevant to a search. However, our exact match domain system works to ensure we don&#8217;t<br \/>\n  give too much credit for content hosted under domains designed to exactly match particular<br \/>\n  queries. For example, someone might create a domain name containing the words &#8220;best-places-to-eat-lunch&#8221;<br \/>\n  in hopes all those words in the domain name would propel content high in the rankings. Our<br \/>\n  system adjusts for this.\n<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"freshness\" tabindex=\"-1\">Freshness systems<\/h2>\n<p>\n  We have various &#8220;query deserves freshness&#8221; systems designed to show fresher content for queries<br \/>\n  where it would be expected.  For example, if someone is searching about a movie that&#8217;s<br \/>\n  just been released, they probably want recent reviews rather than older articles from when<br \/>\n  production began. For another example, ordinarily a search for &#8220;earthquake&#8221; might bring back<br \/>\n  material about preparation and resources. However, if an earthquake happened recently, then<br \/>\n  news articles and fresher content might appear.\n<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"link-analysis\" tabindex=\"-1\">Link analysis systems and PageRank<\/h2>\n<p>\n  We have various systems that understand how pages link to each other as a way to determine<br \/>\n  what pages are about and which might be most helpful in response to a query. Among these is<br \/>\n  PageRank, one of our core ranking systems used when Google first launched. Those curious can<br \/>\n  learn more by reading the original <a href=\"http:\/\/infolab.stanford.edu\/~backrub\/google.html\" class=\"external-link\">PageRank research paper<\/a><br \/>\n  and <a href=\"https:\/\/patents.google.com\/patent\/US6285999\" class=\"external-link\">patent<\/a>.<br \/>\n  How PageRank works has evolved a lot since then, and it continues to be part of our core<br \/>\n  ranking systems.\n<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"local-news\" tabindex=\"-1\">Local news systems<\/h2>\n<p>\n  We have systems that work to identify and surface local sources of news whenever relevant,<br \/>\n  <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.google\/products\/news\/local-news-update-census-mapper\/\" class=\"external-link\">such as through<\/a><br \/>\n  our &#8220;Top stories&#8221; and &#8220;Local news&#8221; features.\n<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"mum\" tabindex=\"-1\">MUM<\/h2>\n<p>\n  Multitask Unified Model (<a href=\"https:\/\/blog.google\/products\/search\/how-ai-powers-great-search-results\/\" class=\"external-link\">MUM<\/a>)<br \/>\n  is an AI system capable of both understanding and generating language. It&#8217;s not currently<br \/>\n  used for general ranking in Search but rather for some specific applications such as to<br \/>\n  <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.google\/products\/search\/how-mum-improved-google-searches-vaccine-information\/\" class=\"external-link\">improve searches for COVID-19 vaccine information<\/a><br \/>\n  and to <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.google\/products\/search\/information-literacy\/\" class=\"external-link\">improve featured snippet callouts we display<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"neural-matching\" tabindex=\"-1\">Neural matching<\/h2>\n<p>\n  <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.google\/products\/search\/how-ai-powers-great-search-results\/\" class=\"external-link\">Neural matching<\/a><br \/>\n  is an AI system that Google uses to understand representations of concepts in queries and<br \/>\n  pages and match them to one another.\n<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"original-content\" tabindex=\"-1\">Original content systems<\/h2>\n<p>\n  We have systems to help ensure we are showing original content prominently in search results,<br \/>\n  <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.google\/products\/search\/original-reporting\/\" class=\"external-link\">including original reporting<\/a>,<br \/>\n  ahead of those who merely cite it. This includes support of a special<br \/>\n  <a href=\"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/google-bilgi-bankasi\/specify-canonical\/\">canonical markup<\/a><br \/>\n  creators can use to help us better understand what is the primary page if a page has been<br \/>\n  duplicated in several places.\n<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"removals\" tabindex=\"-1\">Removal-based demotion systems<\/h2>\n<p>\n  Google has policies that allow the removal of certain types of content. If we process a significant<br \/>\n  volume of such removals involving a particular site, we use that as a signal to improve our<br \/>\n  results. In particular:\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n    <b>Legal removals:<\/b><br \/>\n    When we receive a significant volume of<br \/>\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/transparencyreport\/answer\/7347743\" class=\"external-link\">valid copyright removal requests<\/a><br \/>\n    involving a given site,<br \/>\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/search.googleblog.com\/2012\/08\/an-update-to-our-search-algorithms.html\" class=\"external-link\">we are able to use that<\/a><br \/>\n    to demote other content from the site in our results. This way, if there is other<br \/>\n    infringing content, people are less likely to encounter it versus the original content. We<br \/>\n    apply similar demotion signals to complaints involving defamation, counterfeit goods, and<br \/>\n    court-ordered removals. In the case of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), we always remove<br \/>\n    such content when it is identified and we demote all content from sites with a significant<br \/>\n    proportion of CSAM content.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n    <b>Personal information removals:<\/b><br \/>\n    If we process a significant volume of personal information removals involving a site with<br \/>\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/websearch\/answer\/9172218\" class=\"external-link\">exploitative removal practices<\/a>,<br \/>\n    we demote other content from the site in our results.<br \/>\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.google\/products\/search\/improving-search-better-protect-people-harassment\/\" class=\"external-link\">We also look to see<\/a><br \/>\n    if the same pattern of behavior is happening with other sites and, if so, apply demotions to<br \/>\n    content on those sites. We may apply similar demotion practices for sites that receive a significant<br \/>\n    volume of removals of content involving<br \/>\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/websearch\/answer\/9673730\" class=\"external-link\">doxxing content<\/a>,<br \/>\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/websearch\/answer\/6302812\" class=\"external-link\">explicit<br \/>\n      personal imagery created or shared without consent<\/a>, or<br \/>\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/websearch\/answer\/9116649\" class=\"external-link\">explicit<br \/>\n      non-consensual fake content<\/a>.\n  <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 id=\"passage-ranking-system\" tabindex=\"-1\">Passage ranking system<\/h2>\n<p>\n  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.google\/products\/search\/search-on\/\" class=\"external-link\">Passage ranking<\/a><br \/>\n  is an AI system we use to identify individual sections or &#8220;passages&#8221; of a web page to<br \/>\n  better understand how relevant a page is to a search.\n<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"rankbrain\" tabindex=\"-1\">RankBrain<\/h2>\n<p>\n  <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.google\/products\/search\/how-ai-powers-great-search-results\/\" class=\"external-link\">RankBrain<\/a><br \/>\n  is an AI system that helps us understand how words are related to concepts. It means we can<br \/>\n  better return relevant content even if it doesn&#8217;t contain all the exact words used in a search,<br \/>\n  by understanding the content is related to other words and concepts.\n<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"reliable-information-systems\" tabindex=\"-1\">Reliable information systems<\/h2>\n<p>\n  Multiple systems work in various ways to show the most reliable information possible, such as<br \/>\n  to <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.google\/products\/search\/our-latest-quality-improvements-search\/\" class=\"external-link\">help surface more authoritative pages and demote low-quality content<\/a><br \/>\n  and <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.google\/outreach-initiatives\/google-news-initiative\/elevating-quality-journalism\/\" class=\"external-link\">to elevate quality journalism<\/a>.<br \/>\n  In cases where reliable information might be lacking, our systems automatically display<br \/>\n  <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.google\/products\/search\/information-literacy\/\" class=\"external-link\">content advisories<\/a><br \/>\n  about rapidly-changing topics or when our systems don&#8217;t have high confidence in the overall<br \/>\n  quality of the results available for the search. These provide tips on how to search in ways<br \/>\n  that might lead to more helpful results. Learn more about our <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.google\/products\/search\/how-google-delivers-reliable-information-search\/\" class=\"external-link\">approach to delivering high-quality<br \/>\n  information in Search<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"reviews-system\" tabindex=\"-1\">Reviews system<\/h2>\n<p>\n  The <a href=\"https:\/\/developers.google.com\/search\/updates\/reviews-update\">reviews system<\/a> aims to better<br \/>\n  reward high quality reviews, content that provides insightful analysis and original research,<br \/>\n  and is written by experts or enthusiasts who know the topic well.\n<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"site-diversity-system\" tabindex=\"-1\">Site diversity system<\/h2>\n<p>\n  Our site diversity system works so that we generally won&#8217;t show more than two web page listings<br \/>\n  from the same site in our top results, so that no single site tends to dominate all the top<br \/>\n  results. However, we may still show more than two listings in cases where our systems determine<br \/>\n  it&#8217;s especially relevant to do so for a particular search. Site diversity generally treats<br \/>\n  subdomains as part of a root domain. IE: listings from a subdomain (subdomain.example.com) and<br \/>\n  the root domain (example.com) will all be considered from the same single site. However,<br \/>\n  sometimes subdomains are treated as separate sites for diversity purposes when deemed relevant<br \/>\n  to do so.\n<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"spam-detection-systems\" tabindex=\"-1\">Spam detection systems<\/h2>\n<p>\n  No one wants their email inbox filled with spam, which is why spam filters are so helpful.<br \/>\n  Search faces a similar challenge, because the internet includes huge amounts of spam that,<br \/>\n  if not dealt with, would prevent us from showing the most helpful and relevant results. We<br \/>\n  employ a range of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/search\/howsearchworks\/how-search-works\/detecting-spam\/\" class=\"external-link\">spam detection systems<\/a>,<br \/>\n  including <a href=\"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/google-bilgi-bankasi\/how-we-fought-search-spam-on-google-in-2021\/\">SpamBrain<\/a>, to deal with<br \/>\n  content and behaviors that violate our <a href=\"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/google-bilgi-bankasi\/spam-policies\/\">spam policies<\/a>.<br \/>\n  These systems are constantly <a href=\"https:\/\/developers.google.com\/search\/updates\/spam-updates\">updated<\/a> to keep up<br \/>\n  with the latest ways that the spam threat evolves.\n<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"retired-systems\" tabindex=\"-1\">Retired systems<\/h2>\n<p>\n  The following systems are noted for historical purposes. They&#8217;ve either been incorporated into<br \/>\n  successor systems or made part of our core ranking systems.\n<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"helpful-content\" tabindex=\"-1\">Helpful content system<\/h3>\n<p>\n  <a href=\"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/google-bilgi-bankasi\/what-creators-should-know-about-googles-august-2022-helpful-content-update\/\">Announced in 2022<\/a> as the<br \/>\n  &#8220;Helpful Content Update&#8221;, this was a system designed to better ensure people see original, helpful content written by<br \/>\n  people, for people, in search results, rather than content made primarily to gain search engine<br \/>\n  traffic. In March 2024, it evolved and <a href=\"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/google-bilgi-bankasi\/what-web-creators-should-know-about-our-march-2024-core-update-and-new-spam-policies\/\">became part of<\/a><br \/>\n  our core ranking systems, as our systems use a variety of signals and systems to<br \/>\n  present helpful results to users.\n<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"hummingbird\" tabindex=\"-1\">Hummingbird<\/h3>\n<p>\n  This was a major improvement to our overall ranking systems made in August 2013. Our<br \/>\n  ranking systems have continued to evolve since then, just as they had been evolving before.\n<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"panda-system\" tabindex=\"-1\">Panda system<\/h3>\n<p>\n  This was a system designed  to better ensure high-quality and original content was appearing<br \/>\n  in our search results. <a href=\"https:\/\/googleblog.blogspot.com\/2011\/02\/finding-more-high-quality-sites-in.html\" class=\"external-link\">Announced in 2011<\/a><br \/>\n  and given the nickname of the &#8220;Panda,&#8221; it evolved and became part of our core ranking systems in 2015.\n<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"penguin-system\" tabindex=\"-1\">Penguin system<\/h3>\n<p>\n  This was a system designed to combat link spam. <a href=\"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/google-bilgi-bankasi\/another-step-to-reward-high-quality-sites\/\">Announced in 2012<\/a><br \/>\n  and given the nickname of the &#8220;Penguin Update&#8221;, it was <a href=\"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/google-bilgi-bankasi\/penguin-is-now-part-of-our-core-algorithm\/\">integrated<\/a><br \/>\n  into our core ranking systems in 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Explore some of Google Search&#8217;s more notable ranking systems, including systems that are part of our core ranking systems, which are the underlying technologies that produce search results in response to queries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"menu_order":69,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"ar_kb_kategori":[678],"ar_kb_etiket":[622,536,623],"class_list":["post-16594","ar_kb","type-ar_kb","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","ar_kb_kategori-ranking-systems-ranking-and-search-appearance","ar_kb_etiket-algorithm","ar_kb_etiket-ranking","ar_kb_etiket-systems"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ar_kb\/16594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ar_kb"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/ar_kb"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ar_kb\/16594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25495,"href":"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ar_kb\/16594\/revisions\/25495"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"ar_kb_kategori","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ar_kb_kategori?post=16594"},{"taxonomy":"ar_kb_etiket","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ar_kb_etiket?post=16594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}