What is Google?
Google is a technology company that offers internet services and devices. It was founded in 1998 by Stanford graduate students Larry Page and Sergey Brin who designed their search engine to operate based on interactions between websites rather than the number of times certain keywords appeared on a web page. Their innovation was a major factor in the rapid growth of the company and led to its name becoming a verb when “googling” something became an accepted way to search for information on the Internet. Google’s headquarters are located in Mountain View, California and it operates data centers around the world. The company also owns the hardware brands Pixel and Chromecast as well as the social media sites YouTube and Waze. Its artificial intelligence development group DeepMind works on a variety of projects for Google as well.
The Google search engine uses complex algorithms to determine which websites are most relevant for a given query. This is achieved by analyzing the contents of each web page and judging its credibility, authority and relevance using a series of criteria. A website with the most relevance is displayed first on a list of results. As the web grows, Google’s algorithm is able to refine and improve its ranking system.
While working on the backend of their BackRub search engine, Page and Brin realized that the number of Web pages was growing exponentially. This would require more and more sophisticated algorithms to process and rank search results. In a nod to the increasing size of their project, they named it Google, a creative spelling of googol, a mathematical term for the number one followed by 100 zeros.
Google’s first product was a basic Internet search engine. In addition to the main search engine, it offered additional services such as Google Maps, which displays a detailed satellite image of an area. It also allows users to find local restaurants and other businesses by typing in a specific address or name. Google Maps can even give directions to that location from the user’s current location.
Other early Google products included a free email service, Google Docs, and Google Desktop. In addition, the company created a software utility called Google Deskbar that allowed Windows users to perform searches without opening a browser window. These tools were discontinued as they became more fully integrated into Google search itself.
In 2006, Google acquired YouTube and the following year added a navigation smartphone app called Waze. Its Waze service is used by drivers internationally and can help them avoid traffic delays by sharing real-time road conditions with other users.
Today, Google is one of the most popular Internet companies in the world with a host of services and devices to choose from. Its search engine is arguably the most widely used online, with over 3 billion searches conducted per day. Its other products include Google Fiber, a fibre optic Internet service that is available to 3.1 million people or 1% of Americans. In addition to its core search engine, Google has several other divisions that focus on areas like self-driving cars, healthcare and more.
