Yesterday, Google published a new short video on how Google search works. This was on specifically how Google Search continues to improve results. Clearly this is in response to the US Congressional hearings from a few weeks ago. The video is super simplified but I think does a great job explaining what Google does to make changes to search to make it better.

Here are my notes from listening to the video:

There is a lot of information on web
Google’s mission is to connect you to that information
Google shows off autocomplete predictive searches (this touches on complaints from the hearing on showing predictions that some might disagree with)
Google shows off featured snippets and how they have relevant information (this touches on complaints from the hearing on stealing content)
Google also shows off knowledge panels for quick snapshot on people, places or things and relationships between them (this touches on complaints from the hearing same as featured snippets)
Google said its goal is to get you the information right away
Google said it’s ranking system helps make sure the information is accurate
Some of how it does this is from looking at keywords and how recent page was published (there is a lot more obviously)
Google said it is not perfect
But when it gets it wrong, Google cannot fix individual search results manually
Google said they make search better by making improvements to the algorithms
Google made 3,620 improvements to search in 2019
Google updates its search policies as well and sometimes Google manually removes information from search features, like wrong information in knowledge panels

Here is the video:

Forum discussion at Twitter.