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Googling google

Google recently came under fire from the international community for censoring its search results to comply with the Chinese government. Wondering what exactly the company keeps from us, The Bulletin's Sarah Horn investigates the internet phenomenon and its soon-to-be-ready Belgian data centre

If you’ve ever googled the word ‘Google’, you will have learnt that you don’t learn much. You will sift through pages and pages of links to Google-related applications, products and services before you finally find information on the company from other, independent sources. This raises the question, while Google knows a great deal about us, what do we really know about Google?

Since its launch in the mid-1990s, Google has become one of the major architects behind the 21st-century communication revolution. It has given us Google Maps, Gmail, Google Chrome, Google Wave and, now, a Google phone to rival the coveted iPhone. It has the power to generate millions of websites in a mere fraction of a second. Google has become a household name across the globe, a connector of continents. But who and what Google really is remains a mystery.

HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
The success story began as a research project back in 1996, when Stanford PhD students Larry Page and Sergey Brin conceptualised an extensive, virtually all-encompassing internet search engine. The original fruit of their cognitive labour was a search engine named BackRub, which soon outgrew Stanford’s server capacity. BackRub received a facelift and became Google - an adaptation of the mathematical term googol, referring to the digit 1 followed by one hundred zeros.

Page and Brin registered the domain google.com in September 1997, and a year later Google Inc. was born in a friend’s garage in California. Today, the American public corporation operates more than 30 country-specific versions of the website and over 150 domain names. It boasts nearly 20,000 full-time employees around the globe and runs possibly up to a million servers, processing millions of search requests every day.

In fact it is now such an integral part of our cultural fabric that the verb ‘google’ was added to the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary in 2006. The definition means to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the World Wide Web.”

LOCAL CONNECTIONS
As part of Google’s incessant efforts to improve its services and expand its reach, the company announced in 2007 the construction of a new state-of-the-art data centre in the so-called Digital Innovation Valley near the Walloon city of Mons. The plant, which received around €12.5 million in public subsidies, was expected to open at the end of 2008 but has been running behind schedule due to unspecified project changes and problems with the muddy terrain.

“Everything needs to be so unbelievably precise and work so perfectly,” said Google Belgium spokesperson Al Verney. “Hopefully it will be finished in the not too distant future. The King of Belgium took a tour of the facility last year and got a comprehensive update on where we were compared to when we bought the site. Our investment figure of £250 million is well underway.”

Despite the delays, some ‘super-computers’ have already been installed and, when finished, thousands of computers will be housed here. “Mons will be one of, if not the, world’s most efficient data centre,” said Verney. “It will provide search results in a fifth of a second.”

AT YOUR SERVICE
Why Mons, you might wonder. Apart from the region’s fibre optic network and tax structure, the location was primarily chosen because of its mild climate and nearby canal. As part of Google’s commitment to the environment, the Mons data centre will employ “evaporative cooling” techniques to reduce the company’s carbon footprint.

“Google attacks the issue of energy efficiency from multiple angles,” explained Verney. “For one, they have designed computers that generate less heat. The second element to that is evaporative cooling - there will be no use of central chillers at Google Mons. Google has created a system that purifies gray water and runs it through the data centre via pipes. The heat is then extracted and the water evaporates into steam. When Mons is up and running, it will appear as if smoke is being released from the data centre, but it will actually be water vapour.”

The construction of the Mons data centre has already benefitted the regional economy, according to Verney. “Throughout the construction process, Google has been hiring local contractors, from physical landscapers to electrical engineers and specialist pipe companies. We’re taking on many local technicians involved in the testing of computers.”

Upon completion, the data centre will employ between 100 and 120 people. “Some of them will be doing non-technical things [like] ground maintenance, electrical maintenance and managing site security – basically the day-to-day work required to keep the physical systems and technical engineering aspects running. The others will be doing technical maintenance such as replacing any computers that fail.”

STRICTLY CLASSIFIED
Evidently, Google would be far from the internet powerhouse it is today without its extensive network of data centres. “Google invests pretty heavily in its data centres because they’re a big part of the critical infastructure that makes Google what it is,” Verney said. “Building a data centre is far from being a small project. If one collapsed or caught fire, Google can instantly, and without loss of any data, switch over to another centre so that users don’t actually notice any interruption. At the same time we’re making sure that the information they put in our hands and trust us with is safe and kept private.”

In fact, Google takes privacy to a whole new level. The technology, which allows the giant corporation to transfer information almost instantaneously from one centre to another, remains confidential. In addition, Verney said Google does not disclose the criteria by which it selects its sites in order to protect the future needs of the company and its customers. He also held back on revealing any precise data about individual centres: “They are not small facilities but we don’t give the actual size or specify any numbers.”

All this secrecy has inevitably given rise to various conspiracy theories about how far Google will go to protect its interests. Some suspect Google of requesting construction permits through limited liability companies to avoid putting its name out into the field too early.

But, according to Verney, Google does not announce potential sites until a definite decision has been made precisely to avoid unnecessary rumours. “We look for the right sites and opportunities defined by a lot of different factors and we’ll make announcements when we have something concrete to announce - that we’ve purchased land. We don’t announce things that aren’t particularly concrete.” As if to underline his point, he added that Google “just announced last year that we’re building a data centre in Finland”.

FROM TOP TO BOTTOM
With a 17-percent increase in revenue from 2008 to 2009, Google is certainly in the money-making business.

But while the corporation has become a master at advertising what it does, mum’s the word when it comes to finding out just how the mega-search engine actually works. Its patented PageRank system is probably one of Google’s best-kept secrets. Complex algorithms work to keep spam websites from popping up in Google search results. It ranks pages by importance and relevance as opposed to ranking pages by how many times the keyword appears on the page. PageRank also considers that the more often a website link is featured or mentioned on external sites, the better its reputation. According to Google’s blog, thousands of factors come into play when computer algorithms determine page rankings.

In addition to these mathematical formulas, mysterious criteria - more than 200 different indicators - rank pages and provide search results in just a fraction of a second. The PageRank technology has even spawned an entire new field of work: consultancy firms specialising in search engine optimisation. Companies will pay firms to detect patterns in Google search results and suggest appropriate changes to increase their website’s ranking.

WE'RE FEELING LUCKY
Behind every great technology hides a human brain, and in Google’s case there are nearly 20,000. The ‘Googlers’, as employees are referred to, work daily to improve search algorithms and design new applications, like the recent release of Google Caffeine, a complete make-over of Google’s search infrastructure. Another reason Google stays ahead of the game is thanks to the company’s management philosophy – referred to as the “death of the mother ship”. Verney explained that engineers are entitled to “20 percent time”, which allows them to spend one day a week working on projects that are not necessarily part of their job descriptions.

“Not too long ago, development models were much more centralised and great products were put together by a small group of people virtually locked up in a room until they came up with a good idea,” Verney said. “But Google believes that everyone should be able to spend time doing something they are interested in. The ‘20 percent time’ has generated Gmail, Google Wave, and some of the best products because it allows people time to expand on things they really believe in.”

Another scheme which sprang from this concept is the “data liberation front”, a team of eight engineers allegedly responsible for ensuring that you can stop using Google products at any given point and delete your information from the data base. According to Verney, the team debated over lunch whether it was possible for people to completely erase their Gmail account and all the information linked to it. “That answer is yes now thanks to the data liberation front” who presented their “20 percent” idea to senior management and eventually had it approved.

GLOCAL NETWORK
On top of that, Verney believes that intercontinental engineering has become the company’s bread and butter. While the new Google Wave online software application is being further developed in Australia, teams in California are busy working on the Android mobile operating system.

“There are Google engineers collaborating across Europe: in London, Munich, Moscow, Tel Aviv, Dublin, Paris and even in a farmhouse in the far northwest of Denmark, which is where the Google Chrome browser was born.”

Last but not least, Verney emphasises the fact that the company o en introduces early versions of new programmes to the market and collects valuable user feedback.

“It is a huge advantage that we can build something, deploy it and test it through outside users who will have a go at something new, unfinished and then make suggestions. Google does not develop products in isolation. At a really early stage during product development, Google gets fantastic feedback from real people. This is part of what makes Google a really strong, innovative company.”

SUE ME
For most people, using Google has become part of their daily routine. We have come to accept Google into our everyday lives, almost without question. But, as Google climbs higher and higher, who is keeping track of its flight patterns? In recent times, a Google crackdown seems to have begun. Indeed, the elusive company is seeing an increasing amount of antitrust lawsuits being filed against it all over the world. Print publications are concerned that their own sites are not getting traffic because of the Google news website – a compilation of virtually real-time news stories from around the world. This set-up encourages users to jump from story to story while remaining on Google’s website and never actually travelling to the publication’s homepage.

Publishers also argue that Google is making billions in advertising off their backs. Over the past few years, Belgian, German and Italian publishers have also filed suits against the internet giant. Less than a year before Google announced it would begin construction on the Mons data centre, the company was sued for breach of copyright by Copiepresse, an organisation representing several of Belgium’s newspapers.

Furthermore, Hans-Joachim Fuhrmann from the German Newspaper Publishers Association told a New York Times reporter last month that he can prove there is a connection between websites with strong business ties to Google and ones that receive prominence in Google search results. Newspapers in Italy are bringing forth antitrust allegations against Google because, a er opting out of Google news, their websites could not be seen in any search results at all. The internet giant says it has done nothing wrong and argues that the competitor is only a click away. Amid all the turmoil, it remains one of the most successful, fastest growing companies on the planet. How much can we trust a company we don’t really know?

WHAT'S THE BUZZ
With last month’s debut of Buzz, Google has everyone chirping. The new social networking service, linked directly to your Gmail account, boasts real-time posts of status updates, pictures, links and videos. The only requirement is that users create a profile featuring at least their full name and a picture. To get you started, Google automatically generates a list of people to “follow”, and suggests “following” you to other people, based on your Gmail contacts. For convenience, updates stay in the Buzz feed until you or a follower comment on one, which moves the conversation to your inbox.

In addition, information from Twitter, Flickr, Picasa and Google Reader accounts can be imported into Buzz, all with no mention of Facebook - presumed to be Buzz’s biggest rival. Users beware, because a ‘buzz’ can be sent privately, only to those following you, or publically, meaning it can show up in Google search results for the whole world to see. Also, not only can Buzz tell your friends what you think when you think it, but where you think it. Similar to Twitter being projected onto a map, the mobile version of Buzz can add a location to posts unless the user chooses to “opt-out” on a per-post basis.

According to Google’s privacy policy, copies of deleted items can remain on active servers for up to 60 days, and even then they still might exist in the online backup systems for quite a while.

Source: The Bulletin (March 2010)

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