During a keynote this week at WSDM 2009, Google Fellow Jeff Dean revealed that one Google search could use as many as 1,000 computers.

Back in the day, a Google search would typically only make its way through twelve different computers before it hit your desktop. Now, after years of crawling the Web and building indexes a single Google search can make its way through as many as 1,000 different computers (the entirety of Google’s search index) before it actually ends up on your computer. That’s a whole lot of computers.

What’s even more astounding is that even though searches are going through considerably more computers now than they used to, they’re also traveling much faster. A Google search used to take one full second to make its way through those measly 12 computers, now a single search can be completed in .20 seconds! That’s pretty amazing!

I know when I do a search on my computer I never really think about what goes on behind the curtain if you will to bring those search results back to me. If someone had asked me before today how many computers I thought it took to bring back my search results I know I certainly wouldn’t have said 1,000. I can’t even imagine the amount of space it would take to store 1,000 computer or the amount of time it would take to maintain them all in working order.

Google has indicated in the past that each Google query only uses 0.0003KWh of energy and that Google’s data centers are some of “the world’s most efficient.” When you’re rocking 1,000 different computers for each search those numbers seem high improbable, if not completely impossible.

If you’re interested in know more about how Google works check out this (very long) video of Marissa Mayer’s keynote from 2008.

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Entry was posted on Saturday, February 21st, 2009 at 8:33 pm under Google, Internet.

Read more entries by Emily Price.
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