14 DAY TRIAL // Google is known for its openness but not when it comes to how the search engine works. Once in a while though, it likes to show off the more advanced methods it uses to improve the search experience. In a post on the Google blog, Steve Baker, an engineer in the search quality group at Google, details how the search engine handles synonyms, how often they are involved and just how much they affect search quality. Google says that, while its algorithms aren't perfect, it does a pretty good job at spotting useful ones and eliminating the ones which aren't relevant to the query.
"The goal of a search engine is to return the best results for your search, and understanding language is crucial to returning the best results. A key part of this is our system for understanding synonyms," Barker states. "What is a synonym? An obvious example is that 'pictures' and 'photos' mean the same thing in most circumstances. If you search for [pictures developed with coffee] to see how to develop photographs using coffee grinds as a developing agent, Google must understand that even if a page says 'photos' and not 'pictures,' it's still relevant to the search," he adds.
Barker explains that the current algorithm for dealing with synonyms is the result of five years of work. The efforts have been increased recently and Google seems to be reasonably satisfied with the current success rate. Synonyms apparently play a role in 70 percent of searches, this despite the fact that most users rarely notice it. What's more, Google says that for every 50 queries where the use of synonyms improves the results, there is only one case where the algorithm screws up.
Moreover, now that Google is more confident than ever in the way it handles synonyms, it has also introduced a new way of highlighting the relevant words in a query even if they are different from the search terms. Until now, the search engine bolded the exact words from the user query in the results and closely related words like "picture" when the original search was "pictures." Google has taken this a step further and will also bold words like "photos" when it is certain they are relevant to the query. The post goes into further detail and some examples are really impressive, showing just how 'smart' a search engine can be these days.