Google – The Most Popular Way to Find Information on the Web
Google is the most popular way to find information on the web. It processes millions of web pages in under a second to give you the most relevant search results. Google has many hidden Easter eggs throughout its services that let you use the search engine in different ways. For example, you can display the Google search page and results in leet speak or even Klingon. Google has also made its name by creating other products like email with Gmail, mapping software with Google Maps and video sharing with YouTube. Its multifaceted technology conglomerate is the brainchild of two Stanford University graduate students named Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
In 1996, Page and Brin started their own company to develop a better search engine for the internet. Their first product was BackRub, which looked at the text on a website to determine its relevance. They soon realized that a better method of finding relevant information was to look at how other websites linked to it, and developed a system called PageRank that ranked Web pages according to their popularity.
The success of PageRank helped propel the growth of Google into a multifaceted technology giant. Its search engine was so effective that it became the most-used on the Internet and it bought other companies to expand its services, such as a company that allowed Webmasters to put ads on their sites and another that helped Google show ads on mobile phones.
As Google expanded, its employees have come up with new features to make searching easier and more useful. The Knowledge Graph, launched in 2012, provides richer results that go beyond just showing the text from a web page. It will now show photos, maps and other related information about people, places and things that are searched for.
Google has become so ingrained in our lives that the word has even been used as a verb to mean “to search for something on the Internet.” For example, when someone needs help with an assignment and doesn’t know how to spell the term they are looking for, they will ask “What is the meaning of the word ‘google’?”
The most famous Google service is its search engine but it also offers email with Gmail, mapping software with GoogleMaps and video sharing with YouTube. Other Google products include the Chrome browser, Google Docs, Google Calendar and the Android smartphone operating system.
