What is Google?
Google is a multifaceted technology company that provides online search, advertising, cloud computing, mobile phone software, and more. Its wide variety of products and services makes it one of the world’s most influential high-tech companies. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California. Google’s stated mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. It is currently the top Internet search engine, handling 70% of worldwide searches. Its dominance has caused criticism, including concerns that it may be using users’ privacy data and traditional business issues such as monopoly and anti-competitive practices.
Google was founded in January 1996 by Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who were graduate students at Stanford University. They began working on their project in Page’s dormitory room, attempting to extract meaning from the growing mass of information accumulating on the Internet. The pair’s original search tool was called BackRub, an algorithm that ranked websites by the number of links they had received from other sites. BackRub was eventually replaced by a more sophisticated algorithm, Google Search, which prioritized relevance and returned highly relevant results.
By the time Google went public in 2004, it was handling about 200 million searches a day. Within a few years, search volume had grown to three billion a day, and Google became the most popular website on the Internet. Its success brought a flood of attention and investment, making Brin and Page billionaires overnight. In the years that followed, Google expanded its offerings to include a variety of online tools and services. In addition to its flagship search product, Google now offers a variety of tools for online document creation, e-mail, and mobile phone software. It also owns Motorola Mobility, which allows it to sell hardware such as smartphones and tablet computers.
In recent years, Google has focused on its artificial intelligence capabilities. It has realigned its Search, Android, and hardware teams around this effort, and it has invested in other AI startups. It has even hired former Apple CEO Steve Jobs’s right-hand man, John Lasseter, to oversee its efforts in this area.
Google has offices around the world, with 32 in North America, including nine in the Bay Area. It also has locations in Europe, Asia, and Australia. The company has an extensive network of data centers. The company’s name derives from the googol, a mathematical term that represents a very large number. The founders chose the name because they liked the idea of organizing large amounts of information. Google’s global reach is reflected in its many services and products, which range from Gmail and Chrome to Google Keep and the Google Maps app. The company has even made it possible to share a user’s location with others via Google Maps, which can be a safety feature when traveling or visiting unfamiliar places. For businesses, it provides tools to help them promote their services and get found on Google Search and Maps. This includes a free Google Business Profile that allows small business owners to create and manage their listing on Google Search and Maps.