Google speed

[Bonzo 2000]

How can Google search apparantly billions of web pages for a single reference in a fraction of a second, when it can take my computer a couple of minutes to find a specific file on its own hard drive?

[lDIOTIC]

Cos they don't buy their PC's at the local branch of Dixons.

[Bonzo 2000]

It must be great to be as smart as you, idiotic.  Anyone have a more helpful answer?

[smudge]

Bonzo - Ignorance is bliss, so I'd be intersted to know that too!

I don't have a problem with my PC, but the www is a fantastic invention.

[BillyNoMates]

I always understood that the innards of Google are a closely guarded secret because it's so quick and efficient.

I think their systems do a lot of constant searching all across the Internet behind the scenes. All the results are then complied into some sort of index which is what we use when we Google.  

[lDIOTIC]

They have rooooooms filled with supercomputers to do those searches.

[rja211077]

go here for an explanation http://computer.howstuffworks.com/search-engine.htm

[theren]

I'm no expert by a long shot - but I'd say that google probaby have some pretty good computers. Also they probaby don;t use windows o/s (sorry Bill ;D) probably some variety of unix.

if you consider that the AVERAGE high end server will have 8+processors around i think some can have around 64GB of RAM you can imagine the amount of information it can process quicker than you can think it! most of the info is probably held in the RAM so the access time will be 1000's of times faster than your average hard drive.

As i said i'm no expert - but thats my best guess. anyone who does know for sure - i'd be interested to know -.-

[Mattk]

an explanation of how google works was given on the gadget show on channel 5 a few weeks back.

basically it constantly scans for words and phrases so when u want to search for something,it already knows where the pages are....hence the quick response time

[WoWo]

One of the things to know is that it doesn't search all those records but has index's on the words you search, a little like an index in a book. If I said look at this book and tell me all the references to X you wouldn't start at the front looking at each page in turn you would go to the index, at that point you could tell me how many pages contain the infomation. Thats the secret of google it does the donkey work 24x7 and builds indexes which are used when you search.