Life of a Google Query

The life span of a Google query normally lasts less than half a second, yet involves a number of different steps that must be completed before results can be delivered to a person seeking information.



1. The web server sends the query to the index servers. The content inside the index servers is similar to the index in the back of a book - it tells which pages contain the words that match the query.




2.The query travels to the doc servers, which actually retrieve the stored documents. Snippets are generated to describe each search result.