Search Engines are software that use complicated algorithms to crawl and index the web. Then based on the search queries entered these complex software use even more complicated algorithms to serve results in certain order. The algorithms provide Google and other top search engines use Patents to protect their algorithms and enjoy exclusive rights over them. So understanding search engine patents (especially those assigned to Google) is in a way the best method to understand in-depth how search engines like Google work. Having said that, it doesn’t mean that Google uses each and every search engine patent assigned to them or it is also possible that the degree to which that patent is used in an algorithm could vary. Whatever the case, patents are without doubt the best information available to us and definitely require further research. Here we will dissect and research all the patents related to search engine technology assigned to major search engine players (especially Google).
PageRank was the first core algorithm in Google Search and is named after Larry Page (co-founder of Google). PageRank aims at estimating the importance of a webpage on the basis of number and quality of links it receives. In short it is a link analysis algorithm.
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