True Facts to Know about Google: Quick History and IT Services

The history of Google Inc., a company, which is responsible for the development of the most popular website on the Internet and dozens of valuable IT services, started in on the 7th September, 1998 with just two people Sergey Brin and Larry Page. A week later, on the 15th of September, they registered the company’s first domain name - Google.com.



Before we continue, don't forget to take a look at this interactive video presentation:


Google: 7 Facts about Search Engine’s Secrets & Fun Features

#1. Following and creating innovations

Over the years guys at Google, inc. have shown their brilliant understanding on the IT world and have developed super-successful online services, for example Google search, context advertising network, Maps and Google World, as well as acquired promising start-up projects – YouTube video service is the first thing, that comes to mind.

Although there are many positive examples, there were situations, where Google turned in the wrong direction – let’s remind the Google+ social network, which was even advertised via a merge with the YouTube comment section, but never became as popular, as guys at Google had hoped.

#2. The first visit to Yahoo

The first primitive search engine was developed by Larry Page in 1997 (it was named the BackRub), for a doctoral dissertation, on which we was working together with Sergey Brin.

When Larry Page and Sergey Brin felt like their research results could be turned into a fully functional prototype they decided to sell the fully-working search engine technology.

They felt like Yahoo could be the only company to be interested in such #groundbreaking technology but Larry and Sergey were wrong this time. For the world’s first Internet giant, Yahoo, the price of $1 million for the search engine technology didn’t seem reasonable, so they refused to buy it, or even to get a license for its use.

Yahoo decided to stick to their old look: just to remind you, in 1997 Yahoo was an Internet catalog of websites, which, moreover, was edited manually by company’s employees. In 2002, Yahoo, fully understanding their mistake, approached Google with a $3 billion offer on the Google search engine, but you could probably guess that the offer was turned down with no room for further negotiations.

#3. Google doodles

Every year Google designers create over 1000 "doodles" (thematic drawings, dedicated to certain memorable day or celebration in various part of the world - the last one we have noticed was about the Spanish #Tomatina festival), which appear on the search engine’s homepage. It is believed that the first "doodle" was created to notify the users that the company’s founders went out on a holiday, to a festival celebration to be exact, and won’t be able to respond to user requests and technical problems as quickly as before.

Other quick facts about Google, inc.:

- in the 1990s Karl Page, Larry’s brother, was involved in the launch of the company called eGroups. It turned out to be successful and was even acquired by Yahoo in 2000 for an astonishing half a billion dollars. So, even if Google didn’t become popular, Larry Page would still probably end up working in the IT industry after his brother’s invitation.

- having some positive experience in buying tech companies and start-ups, Google have been acquiring at least one company per month, since starting 2010.

- the button "I'm Feeling Lucky" in the Google search is a massive hit to the company’s revenue stream, as the users are directed to the first search result, without showing the results page with company’s advertising.

- in order to provide its users with the best search results, Google algorithms take into consideration over  200 different website factors and put them in the search results page.

- loosing visitors is the last thing that this search engine needs, so the corporation owns an extensive amount of domains, which contain typos, which take place, when entering Google.com.

- the company was indented to be named Googol (it is a number equal to 1.0 × 10100), but future billionaires didn’t bother to check the spelling before submitting the documents.

- Gmail email service was launched on the 1st of April, 2004 and was considered to be an April Fool's Day joke for a while.

- in 1998, when the website starting to get its first signs on popularity, the search engine was used to generate about 500 thousand queries per day. Now the number of requests per day exceeds 2 million in a second.

- while Google is known for working on large-scale projects, such as providing Internet to the remotest parts of the globe via large balloons and creating driverless vehicles, it is loved for small things, which attract more and more people. We all know hidden features and games inside the search engine but the site is also appreciated in different countries by various cultural minorities – for example, Google is now even offered in Cherokee language.

- the revolutionary Street View technology has come a long way since 2007. At first the roads were photographed with a 5-megapixel camera but now, over 9 years later, we could benefit from a street-view image, created with a 75-megapixel-sensor device.

- up to day billions of Android-based phones were sold, which makes this operating system the most popular and influential on the market.

- while the company is engaged in a variety of Internet projects and offers dozens of services, most of its revenue still comes from advertising.

- a malfunction in Google’s systems back in 2013 has shown how the web depends on Google – when the search engine went down for just 5 minutes, the global Internet traffic dropped by 40%.

Image credits:

1) www.assets.materialup.com/uploads/143ea6c8-c629-45f2-b147-b34b71dda095/dribbble.png