How Google Makes Searches Worthy of an International Market

Google remains the number one search engine throughout the world because of its company’s internationalist approach to business. Let’s face it – Google means big business for a lot of people. In fact, Google is big business, with many revenues streaming in from all parts of the world.

According to Daphne Dembo, the Engineering Director at Google, the primary goal of Google today is to exist as the most useful and relevant search engine in the world, regardless of the searcher’s geographic specificity, language and culture. This is done primarily by creating broad changes in the algorithms employed by Google.

How does Google deal with the complexities of local language and cultures? The company is fortunate to have had a truly international team of engineers who are, according to Dembo, passionate about making local searches matter to people of all countries.

Just how difficult is the job of making one Google relevant to people of all languages, relying on Google for their research and other needs on the Internet? Very difficult, according to Dembo. Imagine the conundrum of the American query “color” and the UK query “colour”. These two differences in spelling can already pose a problem against international searches.

Training the engine

The infrastructure of Google can support multiple languages through its language model. The language model is a set of processes and algorithms that handle multiple language queries. The language model is “trained” by running different documents through the system.

Recognition is the first step in improving the language model of Google. The system assimilates thousands of terms, idioms and other types of speech through the “training” process. This is done because if Google relies on so-called static dictionaries, chances are colloquial terms and similar developments in local language would be removed from the picture.
 
A social search engine

Perhaps the biggest improvement in Google is incorporating tools that would help enhance the user’s experience of a search. Among these features are the following:
 
•  Correcting spellings – there are some instances that people are already rusty even with their native tongue. Google has a standard list of words, and makes suggestions to enhance the output of the search.
 
•  Diacritical signs – quite a few languages utilize diacritical markings to alter the sounds and meanings of words. This is the case for Russia, Germany, China, France and Greece. The language model of Google was enhancing to further support queries that used diacritical markings.

•  Words with multiple meanings are also taken into the equation. Synonyms are shown in multiple languages to make sure that people can make faster searches.
 
•  Compound words – like English, many European and non-European languages make use of compound words. The engine has been designed in such a way that there is no confusion between two words and another query that joins the two words to form a compound term in query.
 
•  Google wants people to save time. This is the reason why “auto-complete” features are integrated into localized versions of Google. This allows users using different alphabets or scripts to save time by listing probably terms and phrases when a “cue” or starting word is given.

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