In a little over 25 years, Google has become one of the world’s most popular brands. Almost everyone uses something created by Google’s engineers and developers daily. Whether it’s searching for information, using Maps for navigation, or carrying an Android phone, the multi-colored G is nearly omnipresent in our lives.
In this article, you’ll discover 25 fascinating facts about this company and its global impact that are sure to surprise you.
Are we ready? Let’s dive in!
…but it was officially launched on September 27, 1998.
Sergey Brin one of Google’s founders, met Larry Page at Stanford University while showing him around as Page was a new student. Together, they created the original document describing how Google worked. At that time, it was just a doctoral thesis by two Stanford students who had met a few years earlier. Their goal was to move beyond simply counting keywords. The developed software considered other factors, such as the relationship between web pages, to determine their ranking position more accurately.
Both were working as graduate students in the Gates Computer Science Building, a new complex with study rooms, a library, and classrooms, funded by Bill Gates with a $6 million contribution.
In 1997, they registered the domain Google.com, and a year later, this project was available on the web.
The first search made on Google was “Gerhard Casper“, the president of Stanford University, where Brin and Page were working. This test was to ensure that Google correctly offered this result, unlike one of its early competitors, the search engine Altavista, which returned results for the ghost “Casper.”
In other words, it was a test to verify that Google was indeed better than its competitors.
Google’s first workspace was a garage in Menlo Park, California, rented from the former CEO of YouTube, Susan Wojcicki.
Google’s initial name was not Google but Backrub. Backrub referred to the backlinks a search engine could offer. This name didn’t resonate with them, so they decided to change it to Google during a brainstorming session.
Its intriguing name is a play on the mathematical term googol, representing a number one followed by 100 zeros, a gigantic, almost infinite number. The name suggests that the primary goal of Google’s founders, Brin and Page, is to organize an infinite amount of information on the Internet and make it meaningful.
As explained by Stanford University: “Sean Anderson (one of Page’s and Brin’s colleagues) and Larry Page were in their office trying to think of a good name, related to indexing a vast amount of data. Sean suggested the word ‘googolplex,’ and Larry responded with ‘googol.'”
Sean was at his computer terminal, so he ran a search in the Internet domain name registration database to see if the newly suggested name was available. Sean mistakenly searched for ‘google.com,’ which was available. Larry liked the name, and within a few hours, he took the step to register ‘google.com’ ‘for him and Sergey.’
First Google logo
The current headquarters of the company in Mountain View, California, is called GooglePlex, in reference to the Googolplex, another mathematically unimaginably large term meaning a one followed by a googol of zeros.
A Googolplex is another extremely large mathematical term, representing a one followed by a googol of zeros.
Google has its own mascot dinosaur. At Google’s main headquarters in Mountain View, you can find the skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus Rex named Stan, which is recognized as the official mascot.
It measures 10 meters in length, and there are various stories about how it got its name: from being a tribute to Stanford University to honoring Stan Lee, the creator of Marvel superheroes. The founders might have bought it as a reminder to employees not to let Google go extinct, as even the most extraordinary creatures can disappear.
Continuing with these interesting name stories, we come to Page Rank, a system that Google uses to measure the authority of websites. The name refers not to ‘page ranking,’ but to one of Google’s co-founders, Larry Page.
The first doodle in Google’s history
Doodles have been a constant feature throughout Google’s history. These designs, which appear prominently on the search page to commemorate different events, started in 1998 with a figure indicating to users that all the staff were at the Burning Man festival. This change was to inform users that in case of any issues, they couldn’t be resolved quickly.
The first time the phrase “to google something” was used on television as a verb was during an episode of the iconic series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, on October 15, 2002, said by the character Willow, played by Allison Hannygan. Subsequently, in 2006, ‘Google’ was added to the Oxford English Dictionary as a transitive verb. The company was involved in a legal dispute over this, fearing it would impact the brand… and they lost.
The company reorganized its structure in 2015: the parent company was renamed Alphabet, which now encompasses all of Google’s services.
A new era for Google/Alphabet began at that time. Since then, the company’s CEO has been the Indian engineer Sundar Pichai.
For years, Don’t be evil was Google’s motto and a phrase used in its corporate code of conduct. After the 2015 restructuring, Alphabet changed it to “should do the right thing,” “Do the right thing.”
Google has acquired hundreds of companies since its founding, the most expensive being Motorola in 2011, for 12.5 billion dollars.
Other major acquisitions by Google include some essential components of what it is today. For instance, the purchase of the social network YouTube in 2006 for over 1.6 billion dollars. It also acquired the artificial intelligence company Deepmind and Doubleclick, a crucial tool for its advertising ecosystem. You can see the list of mergers and acquisitions by Google here.
The company’s influence is so vast that Google has the most used search engine in the world (Google), the most used browser in the world (Chrome), and yes, the most popular mobile operating system, Android.
Indeed, Android (with its iconic logos) is present in over 3 billion mobile devices worldwide.
Google has its own satellite, responsible for capturing images for Google Earth and Google Maps. It’s called GeoEye-1 and orbits the Earth at an altitude of 680 kilometers.
The Google Graveyard is filled with brands that were once significant but no longer exist, such as the social network Google Plus, Google Talk, Picasa, and Panoramio.
Google operates an innovation lab known as X, from which projects like Google Glass, the augmented reality glasses that were heavily promoted but not very successful, and Waymo, its self-driving cars, have emerged.
For several years, Google operated Google Loon, a division focused on developing balloons to provide internet access to remote areas, which was closed in 2021.
In 2023, Alphabet reported revenues of $300 billion, surpassing the annual GDP of countries like Portugal, Peru, or New Zealand.
Despite experiencing layoffs during 2022/2023, Google still employs over 180,000 people across 50 countries.
While exact numbers are hard to determine, it’s estimated there are 8.5 billion searches on Google every day worldwide.
And to wrap up, here’s what you’ve been waiting for. Each year, the most searched term on Google is… “Google,” followed by “YouTube” and “weather.”
Were you already familiar with these interesting facts about Google’s history? What do you think?
Image: Depositphotos
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