Google history

The Google company was launched in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin to market Google Search, which has become the most widely used web-based search engine. Page and Brin, students at Stanford University in California, developed a search algorithm – at first known as "BackRub" – in 1996. The search engine soon proved successful and the expanding company moved several times, finally settling at Mountain View in 2003. This marked a phase of rapid growth, with the company making its initial public offering in 2004 and quickly becoming one of the world's largest media companies. The company launched Google News in 2002, Gmail in 2004, Google Maps in 2005, Google Chrome in 2008, and the social network known as Google+ in 2011, in addition to many other products. In 2015, Google became the main subsidiary of the holding company, Alphabet Inc.

The search engine went through numerous updates in attempts to combat search engine optimization abuse, provide dynamic updating of results, and make the indexing system rapid and flexible. Search results started to be personalized in 2005, and later Google Suggest autocompletion was introduced. From 2007 Universal Search provided all types of content, not just text content, in search results.

Google has engaged in partnerships with NASA, AOL, Sun Microsystems, News Corporation, Sky UK and others. The company set up a charitable offshoot, Google.org, in 2005. Google was involved in a 2006 legal dispute in the US over a court order to disclose URLs and search strings, and has been the subject of tax avoidance investigations in the UK.

The name Google is a variant of googol, chosen to suggest very large numbers.

Early history

Financing and initial public offering

Growth, 2003-2006

Updates and Evolution of Ranking System

Name

Philanthropy

Partnerships

Legal battles

UK tax avoidance investigation

See also

References

Further reading

External links