Strategically Communicating

I really enjoyed learning more this week about web analytics and web search results.  In particular, I’ve always been fascinated by the Googlebot and the methodology behind the process.  While Google gives some basic insight into how the bot crawls, indexes, and serves the web, there are still many mysteries behind how it actually works and how webmasters and site owners can improve their performance.

Perhaps an even greater mystery is how the Googlebot and search side of the business is kept separate from the AdWords side of the business.  Having been in large corporations in a marketing capacity for over 20 years, I find it very difficult to imagine how these two sides of the Google company are kept completely separate with no influence back and forth. 

With search results determined by “over 200 factors” I would love to learn more about how this is regulated – is the search results methodology self-regulated by Google or does an outside body also monitor and evaluate the process?  And in terms of keeping the search and ad sales sides of the business separate, how does the technology team avoid getting pumped for information by the AdWords and sales teams?  Lastly, for the developers that work on the search side of the Google business, it seems like just a matter of time before one of them leaves and spills some of the beans on some parts of the search algorithm that are kept secret.