How Does Google Work?
Google is one of the world’s most powerful technology companies. It has changed the way we use the internet and created an entire marketing industry based on its ad platform. The company was founded in 1995 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were at Stanford University. Google has grown to include numerous other products and services ranging from software to hardware to advertising. Its search engine remains the most popular on the planet. Billions of people use it every day and the name has even become a verb (‘just google it’).
Google’s first massive challenge is to locate new data, record what it is about and store it in its vast database. It is not an easy task, especially as technology evolves and user habits change. Google is constantly adjusting its algorithm to keep up with these changes, and it is no surprise that so many businesses depend on it for success.
The company’s secret to its success lies in how it indexes pages and serves them to users. To do so, the company uses automated programs, called crawlers, that go through the internet and download information from each website that they find. These files are then stored in a large database known as the Google index. When a user searches, Google looks for these files and displays results accordingly.
Another important aspect of the Google system is how it translates words into search terms. The company tries to keep up with the language of users and understand their intent rather than just looking for words. For example, it is able to recognize the difference between Penelope Cruz and Chevy Cruze, and it knows that ‘change’ and ‘convert’ are not synonyms.
The Google index has billions of pages, and it would take forever for the company to scan through them all when a user searched. Instead, the search engine stores these pages in its database and returns them to the user in a fraction of a second. To do this, the company analyzes the text, images and other files on each webpage and stores it in its index.
Other services offered by Google include Gmail, the most popular e-mail service in the world; Google Docs, a free solution for creating and editing documents; Google Drive, a cloud storage solution; Google Duo, a video chat program; and Google Earth, which allows you to see almost any location on the planet. The company also offers a wide variety of other tools for businesses and individuals, such as Google Analytics and Google AdWords.
Over the years, the company has made numerous acquisitions to boost its technological capabilities and expand into other areas of business. For example, in 2003, Google spent $102 million to buy Applied Semantics, which was an online advertising company that allowed websites to display advertisements tailored to their audience’s preferences. In 2007, the company made its biggest purchase yet, acquiring online advertising firm DoubleClick for $3.1 billion.
