Google prioritizes reliability above all else when developing new features for its search engine. This means ensuring the system is available during critical moments such as natural disasters and global sports events. To achieve this, data scientists continuously monitor subtle signals like user refreshes to identify areas where the system falls short.
The search server infrastructure can process billions of searches daily, with an average user unlikely to experience a failure due to an error in the infrastructure until around 150,000 searches have been made. This translates to almost 40 years of searching without encountering a server-side error if you searched 10 times a day.
To maintain speed, Google optimizes its system by phasing out slower code and lesser-used features when introducing new features or changes. The company measures the time between entering a search query and seeing results in milliseconds and has saved users over 1 million hours daily through this optimization.
The introduction of AI Overviews has resulted in additional time savings for users, with Google claiming to have saved another half-million hours daily. By prioritizing reliability and optimizing its system, Google aims to provide fast and efficient search results for its users.
Source: https://9to5google.com/2025/04/17/google-search-speed-reliability