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Some Interesting Facts About Google
blogiseverything.com — The prime reason the Google home page is so bare is due to the fact that the founders didn't know HTML The infamous I feel lucky was nearly never used
balognytts- 1120 diggs
- digg it
- tom6a, on 10/12/2007, -3/+20I found this paragraph interesting, "They use the 20% / 5% rules. If at least 20% of people use a feature, then it will be included. At least 5% of people need to use a particular search preference before it will make it into the ‘Advanced Preferences’."
Anyone webmasters out there know where this "rule" came from? I've never heard it before.
What guidelines do you use when deciding to keep features for your site or implement new ones? I've been thinking about this a lot today since a site I visit a lot just launched a totally new layout (at midnight last night).
Here's the new layout: http://www.omninerd.com/
and the old layout: http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:IYkGwT38i7oJ:www.omninerd.com/+omninerd&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1
They got rid of some mostly unused features (like nerd tools) but mostly the changes are cosmetic.
Many people attribute Google's success to the simplicity of their site and that did help set them apart from the competition, but it was the relevance of the results that was really responsible for their success.- masamunecyrus, on 10/12/2007, -3/+28The relevance of their search results IS one thing, but compare...
http://www.google.com/
http://www.yahoo.com/
Yahoo has so much crap on their page, you nearly have to look for their search bar. Moreover, I've accessed Google on 56k modems before, and it loads just about as fast on a modem as it does on a cable modem -- all because it's simple and clean. - foolfromhell, on 10/12/2007, -7/+31WTF! he Yahoo page got a makeover? Well... not been there since 2002 anyway.
- Electrawn, on 10/12/2007, -3/+25@masamun...
Compare against http://search.yahoo.com . - gd007, on 10/12/2007, -0/+22yahoo started as a portal where google started as a search engine.
- reddevil3, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Here's Larry Page's Stanford homepage, when he was working on Google:
http://www-db.stanford.edu/~page/ - masamunecyrus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4For instance, go to http://www.yahoo.com/ and use this bookmarklet:
javascript:void(document.getElementById('colcx').style.display='none');void(document.getElementById('ftnav').style.display='none');void(document.getElementById('mastheadhd').style.display='none');
THAT would be a good Yahoo! page.
EDIT: @Electrawn: Yea, http://search.yahoo.com is a lot better. - masamunecyrus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@reddevil3:
That page's images don't work anymore. Try the Wayback Machine's copy:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050308064706/http://www-db.stanford.edu/~page/
@gd007:
You have a point. It used to be "Yahoo! powered by Goooogle", or something of the sort. - kingchad1989, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5@ Electrawn
To get to a semi-clean search interface, you shouldn't have to go to a subdomain, It should just be on the homepage. Even http://search.yahoo.com doesn't look near as good as www.google.com - spitfire6006006, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4wow, thats a terrible picture of larry
- somerandomnerd, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2"To get to a semi-clean search interface, you shouldn't have to go to a subdomain, It should just be on the homepage."
Err... Even if the site in question isn't a search? Like, say, Yahoo!? - partybag, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Very interesting to see the number Larry had back then is still the number for Google HQ
- masamunecyrus, on 10/12/2007, -3/+28The relevance of their search results IS one thing, but compare...
- JeremyBanks, on 10/12/2007, -7/+17I doubt it can have been the Digg effect this quickly, but the site's down.
http://duggmirror.com/tech_news/Some_Interesting_Facts_About_Googlehttp://duggmirror.com/tech_news/Some_Interesting_Facts_About_Google- foolfromhell, on 10/12/2007, -25/+4Duggmirror 404
- Etaoin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14Try: http://duggmirror.com/tech_news/Some_Interesting_Facts_About_Google
- foolfromhell, on 10/12/2007, -19/+5WHy am I getting modded down? I was pointing out that link provided was invalid....
- bobpaul, on 10/12/2007, -6/+4@foolfromhell:
because your comment adds nothing to the conversation, while Etaoin's does. Yours is basically spam. Plus, even the bad link works... at least in Firefox
- crispyart, on 10/12/2007, -2/+21"The infamous “I feel lucky” is nearly never used. However, in trials it was found that removing it would somehow reduce the Google experience. Users wanted it kept. It was a comfort button."
haha, i actually agree. i never use it, but like having it there.- foolfromhell, on 10/12/2007, -12/+7my favorite thing bout "im feeling lucky" is when you search for "french military victories"
then click "im feeling lucky"
It doesnt work as well with the regular search - logic, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13I rarely click the button, but I use the "I'm Feeling Lucky" search from Firefox all the time. I'm too lazy to type out long site urls, so instead of "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo" I just type "foo wikipedia" into the URL bar and let I'm Feeling Lucky do the work. :-D
- jerwong, on 10/12/2007, -20/+11Try "Miserable Failure".
- daset, on 10/12/2007, -7/+6I never use the button, but I often use the feature by entering a query into Firefox' address bar.
- marioluigi123, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1I agree as well...I've only used it once, but it would just seem bare with only the one button search button there.
- jcruzlara, on 10/12/2007, -6/+0it just wouldn't feel like google with out the im feeling lucky button
- foolfromhell, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5hey logic. Since you use FF. get the Wikipedia addon to the search-bar that is on the top right by default. click the sign, should be Google by default, and then click add search engines. Helps me everytime
- BobbyOnions, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Or set up a keyword, so you can type "w foo" in the address bar.
- Tanath, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Firefox already comes with a Wikipedia quicksearch (bookmark with keyword). Just type 'wp something' in the address bar.
- ajxx, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0[complementing BobbyOnions' post]
the search adress for Opera is:
http://google.com/search?btnI&q=site:wikipedia.org+%s - darkfoxx, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3try typing in... "failure" and hit i'm feelin lucky. its funny :)
- foolfromhell, on 10/12/2007, -12/+7my favorite thing bout "im feeling lucky" is when you search for "french military victories"
- bloqmon, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Already down, here is the Google cache:
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:MCPWJDRm99MJ:www.blogiseverything.com/factoids/some-facts-about-google/+&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1 - KnightMareInc, on 10/12/2007, -8/+7"The infamous “I feel lucky” is nearly never used. However, in trials it was found that removing it would somehow reduce the Google experience. Users wanted it kept. It was a comfort button."
so true, I never use but I like the button being there.- winterlungs, on 10/12/2007, -9/+0They should keep it, "I'm feeling lucky" is the closest thing they have to a slogan.
- NeutrinoQ, on 10/12/2007, -7/+4Because everyone doesn't know "Do No Evil," right?
But I agree that the I'm Feeling Lucky button should stay. - Mikecol, on 10/12/2007, -7/+4Don't be evil.
- iSlayer, on 10/12/2007, -6/+2Why do i get the feeling I have seen this on the digg podcast before?
- terinjokes, on 10/12/2007, -9/+1You know, that podcast has a name for a reason. Don't ask why there is a reason, just I am sure that it has a very good one, just I don't happen to know it.
- ThisIsJames, on 10/12/2007, -6/+6the yahoo search page made me cry out for google. The google page is just so refreshing to look at and see.
- Toon, on 10/12/2007, -14/+4Some other facts about google?
If you search google for "google," the Internet implodes.
The first page ever indexed by google was a walkthrough faq for Pong. It was one paragraph. "1. Move your paddle in front of the ball. 2. Make it so your opponent can't hit the ball back. 3. Profit!" Yes, that's where it originated.
Known for its streamlined interface, things didn't used to be so. Originally, when you hit enter to search, a three minute, unskippable song played congratulating you on using the Internet.
Some sample lyrics:
The Internet is made from rainbows
Created out of the tears of angels
It's a gateway to knowledge and information
But you've searched for "Slapping titties"
It doesn't rhyme, but in song form, you don't really notice it so much--the zither rocks your socks off too hard.- terinjokes, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3So no Google cache of the song? bummer!
- Evoguy, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5Haha.. all this info is from the 'History of Google' talk they gave at the Google intern event this summer. Way to take it and blog about it, "Matthew P", were you there too (if you're reading this)?
Kinda off-topic but interesting: Google is sneaky about this event, it's kinda funny. Every summer, they get the Google interns to bring all their friends (who are also interning in the area) *at other tech companies* to the Googleplex one night for dinner, a tour, and a few presentations. Essentially, it's guerrilla recruiting, cause most interns out here in silicon valley have already been separated from the 'chaff' so-to-speak, then google gets them at the Googleplex and wows them with their free food, cool cubes, etc. They sneakily request your contact info and then they get your resume when they come out to school to recruit. It's like they make the other companies' HR departments do the grunt work for them... pretty shady, but it works. - tamoneya, on 10/12/2007, -2/+66 types of email users.
does anyone know what those are?- masamunecyrus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5This is about as close as you're going to get:
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum100/206.htm
---------------------------------
pendanticist:
Black has identified three types of email users. Type A users delete everything fairly quickly and never hit their mailbox-size ceiling, so administrators generally don't need to worry much about them. The two other types store messages for future use, either because the messages contain some business value (Type B) or because they answer a question that will probably come up again (Type C). Type B users are fairly organized—they use some kind of folder structure to make it easy to locate items, filing messages by project name, for example. Their mailboxes might grow steadily, but they seldom contain nonbusiness mail. Type C users are disorganized. Their Inboxes may have 1000 or more items, including daily newsletters from a year or two ago, and their mailboxes grow rapidly. Fortunately, says Black, Type C users appear to comprise only about 10 percent of the population.
http://www.winnetmag.com/Article/ArticleID/24958/24958.html
First there are those that file their messages carefully (magpies). Just over 90% of those questioned use more than 10 separate files. Just under half feel so overwhelmed by information that they ignore new messages (ostriches). And over half of those surveyed amass a huge amount of email, refusing to get rid of old messages just in case they might need them (squirrels). In fact, 8% could point to over 2,000 emails in their inboxes.
http://www.infoconomy.com/pages/information-age/group101905.adp
Mailboxes are getting larger these days, so the storage part seems plausible.
Then again... - Scarblac, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1That's interesting. Looking at my mailboxes, I see over 300,000 mails (many of them auto generated debug messages etc, but also mailing lists I subscribed to once upon a time, private, business, everything). I'm magpie on some types, squirrel on some. Around 30,000 of the debug messages are unread, but I don't think that makes me an ostrich, I know there's nothing interesting in them.
Anybody have a D&D handbook nearby to tell me if there's a giant magpie-squirrel in there?
- masamunecyrus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5This is about as close as you're going to get:
- ericjraack, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1The Google is just so much cleaner than the yahoo page
and you just got to keep the i'm feeling lucky button without its already bare enough so taking it away won't help - SuperNick, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1I, too, would like to know what these six type of e-mail users are. I figured there were the professional people (the guys who love Outlook) and then the casual users (those who just use e-mail to sign up for websites) and the personal user (users who used e-mail to keep in contact mainly).
- saifatlast, on 10/12/2007, -5/+5I would guess it's more along the lines of what features they use:
1) No organization whatsoever
2) Immaculately organized
3-5) ???
6) Profit (sorry) - FreeiPodGuy.com, on 10/12/2007, -2/+27From Slashdot:
I don't know about Google, but here at MSN, we classify email users this way:
1. Those that feel physically inadequate and need viagra and penis enhancements.
2. Those that hate their careers and need diplomas.
3. Those that are lonely and want to know about every porn site in existence
4. Those that need cash quick and don't mind helping out friendly Nigerian Officials
5. Those that need good luck and don't mind sending out chain mail to get it.
6. Those that want cheap prescription drugs from reputable companies in the back of alleys.
Here at MSN, we're committed to helping our users so we start off by by giving our users access to all these value added emails. As we get to know users better through Microsoft patented Big Brother[TM] technologies, we tailor or filters so that you can get more of the informative emails advertising that you need.
Try out MSN. We're eager to serve you.[1]
------
[1] See http://members.cox.net/kaiotea/serveman.htm
or http://www.scifilm.org/tv/tz/twilightzone3-24.html
- saifatlast, on 10/12/2007, -5/+5I would guess it's more along the lines of what features they use:
- iSamurai, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1http://www.duggmirror.com
- calacanus, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1http://www.calacANUS.com
- forapathy, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1so does anyone know who are those 6 types of users..
- vagabond0101, on 10/12/2007, -14/+2Google as a company is overly arrogant. This makes them repugnant. A company should radiate "goodness" and a sincere service attitude - this can be seen in Microsoft and HP. But Google only radiates "See, we are the smartest people on earth. Only WE are smart on earth, everyone else are duffers" attitude. In every Google's product, they try to show that they are smart, they always keep looking for ways to inflate their ego.
- fctd, on 10/12/2007, -6/+5MIcrosoft? Goodness? LOL
- mozzep, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Some day there will be a "Some interesting facts about digg" page, and it will be submitted here, and we will talk about it.
- vagabond0101, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I hope there wont be any "Some disturbing facts about digg" page
- seventoes, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5"Digg's comment system used to be single threaded!"
- bovinity, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0that explains the somewhat mysterious "trip to googleplex" one of our interns went on a few weeks ago.
- tigerdyr, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5There is not one single of the issues mentioned here that really concern me. I don't care if google's machines have access to my search-queries and have stored all my past mail. If they really wanna look at it fine - but there's, what?, 15 mio. gmail users? 700 mio. google users? If they really wanna look at mine I'll be flattered - I don't ***** care.
Ohh, and if you wanna know what they're using the info for. It's for finding the best ads for you - it's all an automated process that analyses keywords and fills in the blank spots with ads that suits your interests. I couldn't care less - actually, I'd rather have those kind of ads, than the kind of ads that are just cluttering up space.- vagabond0101, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1When I go to Google, I am not in a mood for shopping. I am looking for information and Google forces me to get into shopping-mode by showing ads. This is lame. If I really want to buy something, I will go to eBay, Amazon or Craigslist and not Google.
- bobpaul, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4@vagabond
Is there a search engine that doesn't use ads? too be honest, I never notice the google ads.. They're unobtrusive and I ignore them
- the_snitch, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4well the main google page may be simple, elegant, and something to be proud of, but the underlying source code is horrible!
For such a huge website (and arguably one of the most frequently accessed page on the web), you would have thought that google.com's source would have doctypes, and be using XHTML strict. They should be adhearing to web standards and setting a good example for sites everywhere.- Saoshyant, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I totally agree with you there. Google's home page can still be clean and simple, but not at the cost of webstandards. Fixing the code wouldn't be that hard.
Webstandards are hurt by Google. You can't tell someone, hey, your site should validate, when they'll reply with, "Why bother? Not even Google validates". - r3zonance, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Google also generates a ton of Javascript errors too, like about 12 per page of results, at least in Firefox anyway.
- bobothn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2actualy since it is so big is proble why it dosent have doctypes and such.you have to remember that even thought it might be only a cople of bits but multiply that times a cople million that is a lot of bandwidth for realy unneeded code. also i have never had a java script error from google and i use firefox.
- Saoshyant, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I totally agree with you there. Google's home page can still be clean and simple, but not at the cost of webstandards. Fixing the code wouldn't be that hard.
- plqplq, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1well at least google bothered to take out the whitespace, unlike bbc news.
BTW I can't get to this article - the blog site has shut it down. Another site screwed by digg ? When are digg-labs going to start measuring response times from dugg sites so they can proactively detect when they are hitting a server too hard and cut the links ? - thecashcow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0page suspended?
- bitmeizer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Just chatted with a Google employee this weekend who mentioned that the biggest reason the home page is still so simple is that every kb squeezed off the page allows an extra few million (roughly) searches per day. They've even tried splitting up the Google logo image into sub-images to avoid transmitting whitespace (dropped due to browser incompatibilities). It is possibly the most optimised page on the Internet...
- andre3000, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1the actual video : http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6459171443654125383&q=label%3Auser+interface
- davetufts, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The article just rehashes this Jan. 2005, blog:
http://www.toprankblog.com/2005/01/google-facts/
Personally, I find the original easier to read, because it's broken into bullet points (and it's not plagiarized). - volatileacid, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Sounds like ***** to me...
"The prime reason the Google home page is so bare is due to the fact that the founders didn't know HTML"
If they could code a back-end and associated algorithms, as well as the HTML output for the search results ... then of course they could have complicated the main page if they wanted to - but that's the point - they wanted to keep it simple right?- r3zonance, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"The prime reason the Google home page is so bare is due to the fact that the founders didn't know HTML"
Nope, that is true. - UnderLoK, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It makes sense. I know plenty of programmers that don't know the first thing about computers or the servers that they write applications for. I on the other hand run systems and could barely write my way out of a paper bag (unless it was made out of bash or tcl that is).
- bpapa, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I was going to make that comment, because I think it's pretty surprising to non-Computer Science people - learning Comp Sci, at least in the 90s early 00s (when both the Google guys and I were in school) required no knowledge of HTML. These days I develop web applications and am a Standards fiend, but when I graduated college I didn't know one HTML tag from another.
- r3zonance, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"The prime reason the Google home page is so bare is due to the fact that the founders didn't know HTML"
- KTCouric, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Hey Matt, it seems that you don't have a blog anymore now. :oD
- UnderLoK, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I hate seeing those account suspended messages... Hope it didn't cost him anything.
- GopherChucks, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I love to see that the sites that comprise my morning reading are already down... was this traffic volume that shut him down, or something with content? Guess we'll never know.
- hansamurai, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1His page probably just received too many hits in a short amount of time so the webmaster just shut his blog down for a few hours or whatever their policy is.
- Geesu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1How do you email google with suggestions and such? I could never find a contact page
- jonbruce, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Looks like the site is down: Try here to find the article:
Google.com ... and ...
cache:http://www.blogiseverything.com/factoids/some-facts-about-google/ - swin101, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Link expired.
- HRF1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1dugg
- TheFoundry, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Please contact the billing/support department as soon as possible."
- BCINGUU, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The account containing the content referenced in the article has been disabled. Here is Google's cache of the content:
The prime reason the Google home page is so bare is due to the fact that the founders didn’t know HTML and just wanted a quick interface. Infact it was noted that the submit button was a long time coming and hitting the RETURN key was the only way to burst Google into life.
Due to the sparseness of the homepage, in early user tests they noted people just sitting looking at the screen. After a minute of nothingness, the tester intervened and asked ‘Whats up?’ to which they replied “We are waiting for the rest of it”. To solve that particular problem the Google Copyright message was inserted to act as a crude end of page marker.
One of the biggest leap in search usage came about when they introduced their much improved spell checker giving birth to the “Did you mean…” feature. This instantly doubled their traffic, but they had some interesting discussions on how best to place that information, as most people simply tuned that out. But they discovered the placement at the bottom of the results was the most effective area.
The infamous “I feel lucky” is nearly never used. However, in trials it was found that removing it would somehow reduce the Google experience. Users wanted it kept. It was a comfort button.
Orkut is very popular in Brazil. Orkut was the brainchild of a very intelligent Google engineer who was pretty much given free reign to run with it, without having to go through the normal Google UI procedures, hence the reason it doesn’t look or feel like a Google application. They are looking at improving Orkut to cope with the loads it places on the system.
Google makes changes small-and-often. They will sometimes trial a particular feature with a set of users from a given network subnet; for example Excite@Home users often get to see new features. They aren’t told of this, just presented with the new UI and observed how they use it.
Google has the largest network of translators in the world
They use the 20% / 5% rules. If at least 20% of people use a feature, then it will be included. At least 5% of people need to use a particular search preference before it will make it into the ‘Advanced Preferences’.
They have found in user testing, that a small number of people are very typical of the larger user base. They run labs continually and always monitoring how people use a page of results.
The name ‘Google’ was an accident. A spelling mistake made by the original founders who thought they were going for ‘Googol’
Gmail was used internally for nearly 2years prior to launch to the public. They discovered there was approximately 6 types of email users, and Gmail has been designed to accommodate these 6.
They listen to feedback actively. Emailing Google isn’t emailing a blackhole.
Employees are encouraged to use 20% of their time working on their own projects. Google News, Orkut are both examples of projects that grew from this working model.
This wasn’t a technical talk so no information regarding any infrastructure was presented however they did note that they have a mantra of aiming to give back each page with in 500ms, rendered.
Source: Email - raseel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0WOW !!!
Thats some really good information.
I'm drying to Dig an article which mentions the hardware used by Google.
Apparently, Google has tons and tons of PC Boxes Clustered together to give a powerhouse performance for its servers. - Susmita, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Hi all
I am new in digg. Do let me know when a post is considered as spamming. Initially I posted one of my blog post, it commented as spam, then I posted a good article on search engine news, that is also commented as spamming. Do let me know why. - thebass, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Submitted:
224 days ago, made popular 224 days 32 minutes ago
old news!
right?
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