The world’s population stands at approximately 7 billion.

Approximately 60% of this global population has internet access, which translates to around 4.2 billion people.

Notably, Google’s search engine is inaccessible in China, a country with a population of about 1 billion. As a result, the remainder of the accessible global population is 4.2 billion – 1 billion, totaling 3.2 billion people.

This 3.2 billion can be divided into different user segments:

1. Frequent users, constituting around 40% of the 3.2 billion:
   • Predominantly comprised of young or working-age individuals (aged 15 to 40).
   • These users perform a minimum of 5 queries per day.
2. Regular users, also making up approximately 40% of the 3.2 billion:
   • Mainly consisting of the working-age population, typically between 40 and 60 years old.
   • These users execute an average of 1 query per day.
3. Irregular users, accounting for about 20% of the 3.2 billion:
   • Encompassing individuals aged above 15 and under 60.
   • This user segment makes very infrequent use of Google search, and therefore, we exclude them from the calculations.

Hence, 80% of the 3.2 billion people use Google search in the following manner:

• Frequent users (40% of 3.2 billion) generate 6.4 billion searches per day.
• Regular users (40% of 3.2 billion) contribute 1.28 billion searches per day.

In total, this amounts to approximately 7.5 billion searches per day, or approximately 87,000 searches per second.

Let’s begin by posing some pertinent clarifying inquiries:

1. Which search methods are we examining – Mobile, Laptop, and PC users?
2. Is our focus on addressing this question limited to a specific region, country, or on a global scale?
3. Are we including all types of queries, such as those answered by Google search engines, Google Maps, and Google Images, or are we concentrating solely on search engine queries?

In light of the above questions, let’s establish the assumptions to specify the details:

• Assuming the search modes to be exclusively Mobile, laptop, and PC users conducting manual searches, while disregarding automated searches.
• We’ll exclude regions like China and Russia, where users do not utilize or favor Google as their primary search engine.
• For the purpose of this inquiry, we will consider only search engine queries, excluding Google Maps and Google Images.

Now, let’s outline the approach for tackling the question:

1. Identify the Target Audience and User Segments.
2. Determine the total population that employs Google as their search engine.
3. Identify Users who opt for alternative search engines.
4. Categorize users based on their usage behavior, differentiating between More Active, Less Active, and Passive Users.
5. Calculate the daily number of queries for each user category.
6. Calculate the number of queries per second.

Considering the estimated world population of approximately 7.5 billion people and assuming global internet penetration to be around 60% (rounding up from the actual 59.6%), the total market size becomes 4.5 billion people. After excluding the populations of China and Russia (1.5 billion people who do not prefer or use Google as a search engine), the addressable market size reduces to 3 billion people. Now, identifying users who favor other search engines like Bing, DuckDuckGo, AOL, etc., accounts for 25% of this population, which is 0.75 billion people. Consequently, the addressable market size is approximately 2.25 billion people.

Based on the usage behavior breakdown:

• More active users (15% of the addressable market) conduct an estimated 7 searches per day, resulting in approximately 2.36 billion searches per day.
• Less Active Users (60% of the addressable market) conduct an estimated 3 searches per day, accumulating to around 4.05 billion searches per day.
• Passive Users (25% of the addressable market) perform 1 search per day, resulting in approximately 562 million searches per day.

Therefore, the total number of searches per day is approximately 7 billion queries, and the total queries per second amount to around 81,000 queries per second.

No of google queries answered per second

Assumptions :

1. Query distribution to be uniform through out the day.
2. Maximum Population using google falls In age group of 16 to 40.

Formula

google QPS =( Total no of queries in a day) /(24*60*60)

Solution.

Taking in to account the overall world population : 7 Billion

People having access to internet in 2019 : 45% = 3.15 Billion

Out of these 3.15 billion , population falling in age group of 16 to 40 would be around 60 % = 1.89 billion , rounding off to 1.9 billion

Total addressable market = 1.9 billion

Assuming 80 % uses internet = 1.52 billion

Assuming average no of queries per day by these people  (averaging the high , medium and low usage): 5 queries per day

Total no of queries per day = 1.52*5 = 7.6 billion

Queries per second = 86,800

Validated my answer  from the google statistics as well.

Objective – To find out number of queries answered by google per second

Approach

1. Find out user segements
2. find out total population with access to internet
3. searches per segment per day
4. total searches per day
5. divide by 3600 seconds to get per second results

• Population of world is 7 Bn which is 7000 Mn
• Avg age expectancy is 70 years.
• Roughly in very simple assumption we have 100 Mn people for each age between 1 to 70

Final Answer  = ~70 thousands queries per second 

In order to understand QPS for Google we can look at the # of queries handles by Google per day and then infer the QPS from the daily data assuming a uniform distribution.

I would like to take a top-down approach and understand how many queries are down across the world per day. Also, assuming that by queries specifically, we are referring to searches on Google.com and not via other Google services.

The world population is 7B and 50% of those have access to the internet.

Thus we have about 3.5B people and it is also safe to assume that anyone who has touched internet also uses Google.

Of the above 3.5B we can assume that:

1. 20% of them are in the developed world. (700M)

2. 60% are from developing countries (2.1B)

3. 20% of them are from underdeveloped countries. (700M)

We can also assume that users in developed countries have access to high-speed internet thus we can assume that the number of queries they do is quite high. While I work in tech and run several dozen google queries per day, it is not true for most people to query so often. Based on my experience I think the range is very wide and thus I will choose 5 as the avg number of queries per day per user.

For developed countries, this number will be a lot lesser as not many people have access to smart phones. Thus I am assuming the number of queries in the developed world is a lot lesser. Assuming its 40% of developed world. 2 queries per user per day

For underdeveloped countries, this will be even lesser and maybe more like 0.25 queries per day per user.

Based on the above we can evaluate queries for each part of the world:

Developed –> 700M * 5 queries per day –> 3.5B queries per day

Developing –> 2.1B * 2 –> 4.2B queries per day

Underdeveloped –> 700M * 0.25 –> 350M queries per day

Thus total query per day –> 3.5B + 4.2B + 350M ~ 7.8B queries per day –(A)

Thus, total queries per second –> (A)/(24*60*60)

Note: I am not feeling very confident about my choice of how I arrived at 5 queries per user per day in a developed country. Any suggestions on how to best estimate the daily queries in developed, developing, and underdeveloped countries?

Calculate the number of queries answered by Google per second?

Assumptions

When you say Google are you saying mobile or desktop or both? assuming both

When you say Google – google has a number of services, search, youtube, mail etc? assuming this is google search ( core google business)

The trend varies from hour to hour assuming you’re asking on average on any given day

Calculation

TAM

Market sizing: There are 7 billion people in the world, internet penetration of 60%  thats 4.2 billion people.

Addressable market: 

Google doesn’t operate in China so which about a 1.4 billion with 90% penetration which is about 1.2 Billion which leaves us with 3 billion

Google’s share:  Google has 90% of search share which is leaves us at 2.7 Billion users who can possibly search

How many users does Google get in a day?

2.7 Billion users potentially use google in a year, assuming that 90% of users use it at least once a month, and 90% of monthly users use it once a day which leaves us as 2.2 Billion users

What qualifies as a search? 

Search via Google or via chrome or via safari browser ( if you’ve had it set) or via android

Each single keyword search counts as a search

How often do user’s search:

We can segment the users into power users, casual users and occasional users WRT search,

I’m assuming 20% power users, 60% casual users, 20% occasional users.

Power users search 6 times a day

Casual users search 3 times a day

Occasional users search 1 times a day

Which brings us 7 billion queries a day – which is 81k QPS