[Mind] Ten things has found to be true
Ten things Google has found to be true
1. Focus on the user and all else will follow.
From its inception, Google has focused on providing the best user
experience possible. While many companies claim to put their
customers first, few are able to resist the temptation to make
small sacrifices to increase shareholder value. Google has
steadfastly refused to make any change that does not offer a
benefit to the users who come to the site:
The interface is clear and simple.
Pages load instantly.
Placement in search results is never sold to anyone.
Advertising on the site must offer relevant content and not be a
distraction.
By always placing the interests of the user first, Google has
built the most loyal audience on the web. And that growth has come
not through TV ad campaigns, but through word of mouth from one
satisfied user to another.
2. It's best to do one thing really, really well.
Google does search. With one of the world's largest research
groups focused exclusively on solving search problems, we know
what we do well, and how we could do it better. Through continued
iteration on difficult problems, we've been able to solve complex
issues and provide continuous improvements to a service already
considered the best on the web at making finding information a
fast and seamless experience for millions of users. Our dedication
to improving search has also allowed us to apply what we've
learned to new products, including Gmail, Google Desktop, and
Google Maps. As we continue to build new products* while making
search better, our hope is to bring the power of search to
previously unexplored areas, and to help users access and use even
more of the ever-expanding information in their lives.
3. Fast is better than slow.
Google believes in instant gratification. You want answers and you
want them right now. Who are we to argue? Google may be the only
company in the world whose stated goal is to have users leave its
website as quickly as possible. By fanatically obsessing on
shaving every excess bit and byte from our pages and increasing
the efficiency of our serving environment, Google has broken its
own speed records time and again. Others assumed large servers
were the fastest way to handle massive amounts of data. Google
found networked PCs to be faster. Where others accepted apparent
speed limits imposed by search algorithms, Google wrote new
algorithms that proved there were no limits. And Google continues
to work on making it all go even faster.
4. Democracy on the web works.
Google works because it relies on the millions of individuals
posting websites to determine which other sites offer content of
value. Instead of relying on a group of editors or solely on the
frequency with which certain terms appear, Google ranks every web
page using a breakthrough technique called PageRank?. PageRank
evaluates all of the sites linking to a web page and assigns them
a value, based in part on the sites linking to them. By analyzing
the full structure of the web, Google is able to determine which
sites have been "voted" the best sources of information by those
most interested in the information they offer. This technique
actually improves as the web gets bigger, as each new site is
another point of information and another vote to be counted.
5. You don't need to be at your desk to need an answer.
The world is increasingly mobile and unwilling to be constrained
to a fixed location. Whether it's through their PDAs, their
wireless phones or even their automobiles, people want information
to come to them. Google's innovations in this area include Google
Number Search, which reduces the number of keypad strokes required
to find data from a web-enabled cellular phone and an on-the-fly
translation system that converts pages written in HTML to a format
that can be read by phone browsers. This system opens up billions
of pages for viewing from devices that would otherwise not be able
to display them, including Palm PDAs and Japanese i-mode, J-Sky,
and EZWeb devices. Wherever search is likely to help users obtain
the information they seek, Google is pioneering new technologies
and offering new solutions.
6. You can make money without doing evil.
Google is a business. The revenue the company generates is derived
from offering its search technology to companies and from the sale
of advertising displayed on Google and on other sites across the
web. However, you may have never seen an ad on Google. That's
because Google does not allow ads to be displayed on our results
pages unless they're relevant to the results page on which they're
shown. So, only certain searches produce sponsored links above or
to the right of the results. Google firmly believes that ads can
provide useful information if, and only if, they are relevant to
what you wish to find.
Google has also proven that advertising can be effective without
being flashy. Google does not accept pop-up advertising, which
interferes with your ability to see the content you've requested.
We've found that text ads (AdWords) that are relevant to the
person reading them draw much higher clickthrough rates than ads
appearing randomly. Google's maximization group works with
advertisers to improve clickthrough rates over the life of a
campaign, because high clickthrough rates are an indication that
ads are relevant to a user's interests. Any advertiser, no matter
how small or how large, can take advantage of this highly targeted
medium, whether through our self-service advertising program that
puts ads online within minutes, or with the assistance of a Google
advertising representative.
Advertising on Google is always clearly identified as a "Sponsored
Link." It is a core value for Google that there be no compromising
of the integrity of our results. We never manipulate rankings to
put our partners higher in our search results. No one can buy
better PageRank. Our users trust Google's objectivity and no
short-term gain could ever justify breaching that trust.
Thousands of advertisers use our Google AdWords program to promote
their products; we believe AdWords is the largest program of its
kind. In addition, thousands of web site managers take advantage
of our Google AdSense program to deliver ads relevant to the
content on their sites, improving their ability to generate
revenue and enhancing the experience for their users.
7. There's always more information out there.
Once Google had indexed more of the HTML pages on the Internet
than any other search service, our engineers turned their
attention to information that was not as readily accessible.
Sometimes it was just a matter of integrating new databases, such
as adding a phone number and address lookup and a business
directory. Other efforts required a bit more creativity, like
adding the ability to search billions of images and a way to view
pages that were originally created as PDF files. The popularity of
PDF results led us to expand the list of file types searched to
include documents produced in a dozen formats such as Microsoft
Word, Excel and PowerPoint. For wireless users, Google developed a
unique way to translate HTML formatted files into a format that
could be read by mobile devices. The list is not likely to end
there as Google's researchers continue looking into ways to bring
all the world's information to users seeking answers.
8. The need for information crosses all borders.
Though Google is headquartered in California, our mission is to
facilitate access to information for the entire world, so we have
offices around the globe. To that end we maintain dozens of
Internet domains and serve more than half of our results to users
living outside the United States. Google search results can be
restricted to pages written in more than 35 languages according to
a user's preference. We also offer a translation feature to make
content available to users regardless of their native tongue and
for those who prefer not to search in English, Google's interface
can be customized into more than 100 languages. To accelerate the
addition of new languages, Google offers volunteers the
opportunity to help in the translation through an automated tool
available on the Google.com website. This process has greatly
improved both the variety and quality of service we're able to
offer users in even the most far flung corners of the globe.
9. You can be serious without a suit.
Google's founders have often stated that the company is not
serious about anything but search. They built a company around the
idea that work should be challenging and the challenge should be
fun. To that end, Google's culture is unlike any in corporate
America, and it's not because of the ubiquitous lava lamps and
large rubber balls, or the fact that the company's chef used to
cook for the Grateful Dead. In the same way Google puts users
first when it comes to our online service, Google Inc. puts
employees first when it comes to daily life in our Googleplex
headquarters. There is an emphasis on team achievements and pride
in individual accomplishments that contribute to the company's
overall success. Ideas are traded, tested and put into practice
with an alacrity that can be dizzying. Meetings that would take
hours elsewhere are frequently little more than a conversation in
line for lunch and few walls separate those who write the code
from those who write the checks. This highly communicative
environment fosters a productivity and camaraderie fueled by the
realization that millions of people rely on Google results. Give
the proper tools to a group of people who like to make a
difference, and they will.
10. Great just isn't good enough.
Always deliver more than expected. Google does not accept being
the best as an endpoint, but a starting point. Through innovation
and iteration, Google takes something that works well and improves
upon it in unexpected ways. Search works well for properly spelled
words, but what about typos? One engineer saw a need and created a
spell checker that seems to read a user's mind. It takes too long
to search from a WAP phone? Our wireless group developed Google
Number Search to reduce entries from three keystrokes per letter
to one. With a user base in the millions, Google is able to
identify points of friction quickly and smooth them out. Google's
point of distinction however, is anticipating needs not yet
articulated by our global audience, then meeting them with
products and services that set new standards. This constant
dissatisfaction with the way things are is ultimately the driving
force behind the world's best search engine.
* Full-disclosure update: When we first wrote these "10 things"
four years ago, we included the phrase "Google does not do
horoscopes, financial advice or chat." Over time we've expanded
our view of the range of services we can offer –- web search, for
instance, isn't the only way for people to access or use
information -– and products that then seemed unlikely are now key
aspects of our portfolio. This doesn't mean we've changed our core
mission; just that the farther we travel toward achieving it, the
more those blurry objects on the horizon come into sharper focus
(to be replaced, of course, by more blurry objects).
http://www.google.com/corporate/tenthings.html
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