What is Google?
Google is the world’s most popular search engine. It is used billions of times each day to find information, news and much more. The company also develops and markets several other products and services, most notably online advertising technology. Google is a multinational corporation with headquarters in Mountain View, California.
When people enter a search term in the Google search box, it surveys all possible web pages for matching content and serves the user matches in order of importance. This process is done in less than a second. The ranking of results is based in part on PageRank, a complex algorithm that weighs the importance of each individual web page in the Google index based on the number and weight of other websites that link to it. Google may also use other secret criteria to influence the rankings of resulting pages, but these are not publicly disclosed.
In addition to its search engine, Google provides other free web-based products and services such as Gmail (the world’s most popular email host), Google Calendar, Google Books, Docs, Slides and Keep, YouTube, Android smartphone software, the Chrome internet browser and the Google Maps mapping service. It also sells physical products such as the Pixel mobile phone, the Chromecast streaming device and the Google Home voice-activated digital assistant.
Google’s business model is primarily based on the sale of targeted online advertisements, known as “Google AdWords” and “Google AdSense”. The company also offers a range of other services that help businesses manage their web presence such as Google Analytics, an online marketing tool and Google Webmaster Tools, a suite of tools for managing website security.
As well as these services, Google also operates an array of specialized interactive experiences such as flight status and package tracking, weather forecasts, currency, unit and time conversions and word definitions. It also has a huge collection of digital assets that it has purchased or created, such as YouTube and Picasa.
Since its founding in 1998, Google has grown from a two-man startup into a massive global multibillion-dollar enterprise that is currently the jewel of parent company Alphabet Inc. Google’s slogan of “don’t be evil” was formally relegated to the company code following its 2015 restructuring into Alphabet, but its corporate culture is still infused throughout every aspect of the company’s activities.
Google is also the target of a variety of criticisms including concerns that it compiles too much personal data, alleged misuse of intellectual property and traditional business issues such as anti-competitive practices and monopoly power. A group of critics dedicated to abstaining from using Google products has coalesced around the Reddit online community /r/degoogle. Google has responded to many of these concerns with new policies and products. In 2019, it announced plans to build a multibillion-dollar fiber-optic broadband network in the US. This is intended to provide faster internet speeds and better coverage for rural areas. It also plans to begin testing driverless cars. This will be an important step toward the eventual goal of self-driving vehicles that can navigate traffic and communicate with other vehicles on their own.
