Google Search consumer information

When you search on Google, ranking systems sort through billions of web pages in our Search index to give you useful information in a fraction of a second.

These ranking systems are made up of a series of algorithms that analyze what it is you're looking for and what information to return to you. And as we’ve evolved Search to make it more useful, we’ve refined our algorithms to assess your searches and the results in finer detail to make our services work better for you. 

To give you the most useful information, Search algorithms look at many factors, including the words of your query, relevance and usability of pages, expertise of sources, and your location and settings. The weight applied to each factor varies depending on the nature of your query—for example, the freshness of the content plays a bigger role in answering queries about current news topics than it does about dictionary definitions.

To ensure you can trust how Google ranks results, we never accept payment to be included in search results or to be ranked higher in search results. We believe relevant ads can be as useful as actual search results, but we don’t want anyone to be confused about which is which. When we do show ads, they're always clearly labeled. We show ads only when we believe they’re relevant to the search terms you’ve entered and could be useful to your search. If we have no relevant ads, we show no ads at all. To learn more about why a Search ad is relevant: Click Info   Why This Ad.

Learn more about consumer information in Google Search:

• How Search algorithms work
• Search results from your Google products
• Why we sell advertising, not search results
• About Google ads
• How we make money with Advertising

At Google, we believe in open access to information, so we try hard to make information from the web available to all our users. That’s why we don't remove content from search results — except in very limited circumstances, including legal removals, a violation of our Google Search Essentials, or at the request of the website owner who's responsible for the page. In order to promote safe and useful websites, Google also invests in quality algorithms and manual reviews to ensure that sites don’t rise in search results through deceptive or manipulative behavior. This is especially important because many such spam sites can harm or mislead users.

Reviews

Reviews on Google provide valuable information about businesses to both businesses and customers. Business reviews appear next to listing in Maps and Search, and can help business stand out on Google.

Users can write reviews on Google Maps for places they’ve visited. They can also leave info about a place, like if it’s quiet, lively, or romantic. These reviews and opinions are voluntary. We don’t pay reviewers for adding them to Google Maps. Reviews will be visible in Google Maps until users take it down. After a review is published, users can edit what they wrote, or change the rating and pictures they included.

Google uses automated spam detection measures to remove reviews that are probably spam.

Google has no tolerance for fake reviews. We may take down any review that we think is fake or that doesn’t follow Google's review policies. Reviews may also get taken down if others label them inaccurate or if they don’t comply with Google’s review policies or applicable law. You can’t contact someone who left an inappropriate review, but you can request that Google remove it.

Businesses can reply to reviews directly on their Business Profile on Search and Maps. They can also reply through the Google My Business app and with Business Profile Manager. Replies show to all Maps users. Learn how to reply to reviews on your Business Profile.