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The magic that makes Google tick |
axxxr
Joined: Mar 21, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: Londinium
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The numbers alone are enough to make your eyes water.
- Over four billion Web pages, each an average of 10KB, all fully indexed.
- Up to 2,000 PCs in a cluster.
- Over 30 clusters.
- 104 interface languages including Klingon and Tagalog.
- One petabyte of data in a cluster -- so much that hard disk error rates of 10-15 begin to be a real issue.
- Sustained transfer rates of 2Gbps in a cluster.
- An expectation that two machines will fail every day in each of the larger clusters.
- No complete system failure since February 2000.
It is one of the largest computing projects on the planet, arguably employing more computers than any other single, fully managed system (we're not counting distributed computing projects here), some 200 computer science PhDs, and 600 other computer scientists.
And it is all hidden behind a deceptively simple, white, Web page that contains a single one-line text box and a button that says Google Search.
When Arthur C. Clarke said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, he was alluding to the trick of hiding the complexity of the job from the audience, or the user. Nobody hides the complexity of the job better than Google does; so long as we have a connection to the Internet, the Google search page is there day and night, every day of the year, and it is not just there, but it returns results. Google recognises that the returns are not always perfect, and there are still issues there -- more on those later -- but when you understand the complexity of the system behind that Web page you may be able to forgive the imperfections. You may even agree that what Google achieves is nothing short of sorcery.
Full article on: ZDNET
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lor
Joined: Mar 07, 2002
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From: Planet Bob
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Davo_169
Joined: Sep 06, 2004
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From: perth/thredbo
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how many zeros are there in a petabyte??
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blackspot
Joined: Sep 06, 2004
Posts: > 500
From: Philippines
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Klingon!  "kapla"
edit: I used no other than Google and found this:
petabyte - 2 to the 50th power (1,125,899,906,842,624) bytes. A petabyte is equal to 1,024 terabytes.
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resistance is futile
[ This Message was edited by: blackspot on 2004-12-09 06:34 ] |
Johnex
Joined: Nov 26, 2002
Posts: > 500
From: Stockholm/Sweden
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Well, it's 1000000 gigabites, so it would be 1000000000 megabites
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Ayush
Joined: Sep 12, 2003
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From: Hyderabad, india
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But how does google generate so much revenue? Solely through ads?
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Johnex
Joined: Nov 26, 2002
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From: Stockholm/Sweden
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I think they get it from the shares.
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axxxr
Joined: Mar 21, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: Londinium
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Wow!!!...Google earns an average of nine cents every time a search is served in the United States! 
Quote:
| On average, Google gets nearly a dime for every search it serves in the US. A recent report from Majestic, based on proprietary Comscore data as well as Majestic's own panels and other sources, notes:
- 98 percent of GOOG revs are from paid search. 65% of revs are domestic.
- Q3 domestic growth driven by 7% quarter to quarter increase in paid introductions (paid clicks), to 964 million, and a 2% quarter to quarter increase in average price per click, to 5%.
- Average CPC: 54 cents, up a cent quarter to quarter.
- Revenue per query grew 8.3% quarter to quarter to nine cents. (That's right, every search we do on Google makes them nearly a dime, on average).
- Overall US searches grew 6% quarter to quarter, Google powered searches grew by .2%.
- In Q2, 51.9% of all searches on the Google Network included at least one paid listing.
- Of those, 32% include at least one paid introduction.
That's nearly 17% of all searches ending up with a click on a paid link. |
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fetzi
Joined: Oct 26, 2004
Posts: 230
From: currently warsaw
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IŽll propose to make fifty-fifty next time IŽll use it.. 
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Posted: 2004-12-09 02:26
