Want to know how Google works

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Hi Quentin,

That is nicely put together! Did you create it?

While much of what is included is spot on, there are some glaring errors. As Lucid pointed out a couple related to PPC. I will add that ads are placed above organic results when they have a both high Quality Score and have a bid score higher than competing ads for the top 3 positions. While CTR is a major component of QS, CTR alone will net get your ad above the organic results.

There is little detail on some well known core features of how Google works. The primary core task that Google performs is not even mentioned and the mysterious notion of "domain authority" is injected, yet Google doesn't appear to use any signal of authority except for PageRank and TrustRank which are applied to individual URLs not domains.

The whole notion of filters, as represented, is a misnomer. This should be labeled "Extensions" which means the complete opposite of filters. Google applies filters prior to extensions to reduce processing requirements. The most notable filter, that is truly a "filter", is not mentioned. That would be the duplicate content filter.

The creator did such a nice job, it's sad to think that many folks may come to think of it as an accurate model, which much of it is, but included are some common misconceptions which this graph will only serve to perpetuate.