What is Google?
Google is the most popular search engine on the planet. It processes more than 3.5 billion searches every day, and it takes less than a second for the site to display results after someone enters their query.
This is a remarkable feat, considering the immense amount of information that Google has to sift through and categorize before it can return the best results. Its ranking systems are designed to take into account everything from the words you type to the location you are searching from.
The company was founded in 1995 by Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who developed a prototype for a search engine called backrub while they were students at Stanford University in California. Their shoestring operation was initially powered by cheap and used personal computers, and they maxed out their credit cards buying terabytes of disk space. Backrub was an early success, and by 1998 Google was profitable enough to begin distributing the software through a network of volunteers.
Over the years, Google has expanded its offerings to include web browsers, email, online document creation, instant messaging, mobile phone software and more. Its hardware includes tablet and smartphone computers as well as Chromebook laptops, which are popular among consumers and schools. The company also offers a range of services to business customers, including cloud storage and web traffic analysis.
Many of the company’s products have become household names, and the term “googling” has entered our language as an expression for performing a search on the internet. Google is a multinational corporation that is one of the most influential technology companies in the world.
Despite the vast array of Google’s products, its original search engine is still the core of the company’s business. It remains the most used search engine in the world, with an estimated 90% of the market share.
A Google spokesperson has said that the name was inspired by googol, a number that is 1 followed by 100 zeros. The founders of the company saw it as a creative way to express the idea that the company would someday hold an unimaginable amount of information.
Using Google’s search engine, you can find websites, images, news and maps. The site will suggest other search terms if you misspell a word or name, and it allows you to limit your search to the United States, all of the Internet, or specific countries or regions. It will even produce its own news articles based on your search terms. You can also use Google’s tools to create your own custom homepage, track your favorite websites, save and store information and photos. And of course, there is Gmail, the world’s most popular e-mail service. Google also offers a suite of other products and services such as Google Keep, Google Duo, Google Earth, Google Maps and Google Lens.
