How Google Works

Google is the world’s leading search engine and the company behind many of the Internet’s most popular websites, services and products. It processes more than 3.5 billion searches each day and that number continues to grow every year. The search engine’s immense amount of data is categorized, sorted and displayed in less than a second after someone enters their query. That massive task would be impossible without a series of sophisticated algorithms that look at things like the words entered into a search box, the relevance and usability of Web pages, the expertise of sources and your settings.

The story of how google came to be begins with two humble Stanford graduate students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The pair met in 1995 while evaluating Stanford for grad school, and quickly realized they had an opportunity to build a search engine for the new World Wide Web. Working from their dorm rooms, the pair developed a system that used links to determine the importance of Web pages and sorted them accordingly. Their original search engine was called Backrub and the duo incorporated Google in 1998. The name was chosen by the founders because it is a mathematical term based on the number googol (10100).

Since its inception, the company has grown from that two-man enterprise to a multibillion-dollar corporation with more than 150,000 employees and a market capitalization of more than $1 trillion. In 2015, it restructured and is now part of parent company Alphabet Inc.

While search is still Google’s core business, the company also offers a variety of other services and products including email and photo storage (Gmail), productivity software (Google Docs) and the Chrome internet browser. It also produces the Android mobile operating system and the Pixel smartphone.

In addition to search, Google has a wide range of other online tools and applications that make it possible to do everything from researching your genealogy to learning a foreign language. Some of its most popular offerings include Google Maps, which provides directions, maps and traffic updates; YouTube, a free video service; and AdWords, an advertising tool for businesses.

Google’s enormous database is continually growing as users create new websites and services that use its technology. As a result, the search engine has to constantly update and improve its systems to keep up with the ever-expanding number of available information and to continue to offer users the best results for their queries. That constant development makes google one of the most innovative technology companies in the world and ensures it will remain at the forefront of the industry for years to come. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California. As of 2024, Google has more than 160 offices worldwide. Its annual revenue exceeds $30 billion. Its share price has increased more than 1,500% since its initial public offering in 2004. It is the largest publicly traded company in the United States and the third-largest in the world, trailing only Apple and Facebook by market capitalization.