Matt Cutts has given librarians and school teachers an early Christmas present. In an article published in Google’s Newsletter for Librarians, Cutts gives a basic explanation of how Google ranks and sorts documents found in its index. Along the way, he offers search engine marketers a bit of advice on what Google is examining when looking at specific websites.
The document is written so that school children can easily understand it and takes readers through a simple explanation outlining how Google finds sites and what it does with them once found. It also offers a couple of simple exercises for teachers and students to give them an idea of the complexity of sorting search results.
The Google Librarian Newsletter, along with Matt Cutts Blog are two tools Google is using to make itself more transparent to general search engine users and the search marketing community. By trying to be the most open and informative search engine, Google is hoping to stem the mounting public relations issues that come with rapid growth, a couple of PR mistakes and the increased public interest in the search sphere. From what we observe, it’s working. Google’s efforts to be open are paying off with better press, deeper discussions about Google, and a new level of trust between the search marketing community and the world’s most popular search engine.