How Google Has Become One Of The World’s Most Powerful Corporations
What began in the late 1990s as a research project by two Stanford University graduate students has become one of the most powerful companies in the world. Google now offers more than 50 Internet services and products, from email (Gmail) to video sharing (YouTube), with most of its revenue coming from search advertising.
The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California, with operations around the globe. Google’s technology is used by more than one billion people each day to find information on the Web. The company processes 3.5 billion searches per day, requiring massive amounts of data to be located, recorded, categorized, rearranged and displayed within a fraction of a second after someone enters a search query. Google manages all this information with 11 data centers around the world, each containing tens of thousands of servers — basically, multiprocessor personal computers and hard drives mounted in specially designed racks. Google runs three proprietary computer programs to manage its data: GFS, Bigtable and MapReduce.
Google’s success stems in large part from its patented search algorithm, known as PageRank. This algorithm ranks Web pages by determining how many other Web pages link to them, as well as the quality of the links. It also takes into account how long a Web page has been in existence. Google’s emphasis on the importance of newer pages and its reliance on links to determine rank make it unique among competing search engines.
The success of Google’s search engine led to other innovations, including a way for companies to place ads on the site. AdWords allows advertisers to bid for a position in the results page for certain keywords or phrases. As a result, the ads appear on the right side of the results page or as a box above or below the results. Google makes money when people click on the ads or visit the advertiser’s website.
In 2004 Google became the first Internet company to have an initial public offering, selling shares of its stock to the public in order to raise more money. The company’s enormous success has made its founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, billionaires.
Since its inception, Google has branched out to provide many other popular services, such as email with Gmail, video sharing with YouTube and navigation with Google Maps. Despite this expansion, Google’s original search tool remains its most popular service.
The Google home page is the most visited website in the world, with millions of people accessing it daily to get answers to their questions. In addition, Google has been used by students in the classroom for a variety of tasks, from researching for an essay to finding the best theaters in a city. For these reasons, the term googling has even entered the vernacular, with people referring to any Internet search as being “googled.” Whether you’re searching for something specific or just browsing, Google can help you get what you need. It’s just a matter of knowing how to use it the right way.
