Transcript How Google Works - Missouri State University

Unit 2 Closing Case #2
Allison Arnold
April 28, 2008


Google’s mission is to organize the world’s
information and make it universally
accessible and useful.
The name Google is a play on words from the
mathematical term “Googol” which means 1
followed by 100 zeros. This term reflects
their mission of organizing the world’s
information.



Google’s primary line of business is its search
engine; however it generates revenue from
the marketers and advertisers that are paying
to place their ads on the site.
AdWords launched in 2005 and accounts for
the majority of Google’s annual revenue from
over 150,000 advertisers.
AdWords allows advertisers to bid on
common keywords and the maximum amount
they want to pay per click, per day.
The normal life span of a
Google query lasts less
than a half second.
1. The web server sends
the query to the index
servers.
2. The query travels to
the doc servers, which
actually retrieve the
stored documents.
3. The search results are
returned to the user in
a fraction of a second.
Source:
http://www.google.com/intl/en/corporate/tech.html

Determine if Google’s search results are
examples of transactional or analytical
information.
◦ Transactional-encompasses all of the information
contained within a single business process or unit
of work, and its primary purpose is to support the
performing of daily operational tasks.
◦ Analytical-encompasses all organizational
information and its primary purpose is to support
the performing of managerial analysis tasks.

Google’s search results are analytical
information

Describe the impact on Google’s business if
the search information it presented to its
customers was of low quality.
◦ The business would suffer greatly because users
would begin to distrust the results of their search
and go elsewhere for more accurate information

Explain how the Website
RateMyProfessors.com solved its problem of
poor information.
◦ The goal of this website was to create a place
where students could rank their teachers. Too
many jokesters were giving false professor names
leaving the information on the website
questionable. The developers turned to Google to
create an automatic verification tool.

Identify the different types of entity classes
that might be stored in Google’s indexing
database.
◦ Entity class—(often called a table) is a selection of similar entities
(person, place or thing).
Person
Employee
FullTime
Manager

Identify how Google might use a data
warehouse to improve its business.
◦ Data warehouses store the same information as a
database, but in an aggregated form more suited
to supporting decision-making tasks.

Explain why Google would need to cleanse
the information in its data warehouse.
◦ Data warehouses can contain information from
several different databases, some of which can be
external to the organization. Having low quality
information will have a negative impact on the
company’s ability to make the right decisions.

Identify a data mart that Google’s marketing
and sales department might use to track and
analyze its AdWords revenue.
◦ Pay per click
◦ Paid Sponsorship
◦ Paid Search



Google reported revenues of $5.51 billion for
the quarter ended March 31, 2009
Google Translate is capable of automatic
translation between 41 languages, covering
98% of the languages read by Internet users.
Google joined Twitter in February and now
has over 500,000 followers.


Google http://www.google.com
Haag, Stephen, Paige Baltzan, Amy Phillips. CIS 429 Business Driven Technology. Ed. Ann
Hayes. New York: McGraw Hill, 2008.