Google focuses on the needs of librarians.

Google has launched a new newsletter for librarians, called — eh, well — the “Google’s Newsletter for Librarians”.

This newsletter was apparently conceived at the 2005 American Library Association conference in Chicago, where the company started discussion searching and information sources with the librarians present.

The first issue includes an article by Matt Cutts, the well known Google engineer, on how Google determines search engine rankings.

Although he doesn’t divulge any secrets, this is an presentation that should also interest more seasoned Google experts. He points out that:

As a rule, Google tries to find pages that are both reputable and relevant. If two pages appear to have roughly the same amount of information matching a given query, we’ll usually try to pick the page that more trusted websites have chosen to link to. Still, we’ll often elevate a page with fewer links or lower PageRank if other signals suggest that the page is more relevant.

One such signal would be if the web page dedicated entirely to the topic at hand.

Subscribers to the newsletter may send Google questions on searching. In every newsletter the editors will try to answer one or two of the most frequently asked questions.