Without discussion, Google is one of the most important companies in history. 90% of users they use their search engine to carry out their searches on the net and without question it is one of the giants with capital letters on the Internet. With more than 20 years of experience, we want to tell you curious and little known aspects of the . Some are better known, others we have had to discover by digging a bit and in some cases we have used contributions from users of , as in
Google Story: Surprising things you (probably) didn’t know
1. The history of Google starts at Stanford University
at Stanford University when I was teaching school, since Page was a new student. Thus, together they created the that described how Google works. The idea of both was to go beyond counting the number of keywords used. The software developed took into account other factors, such as the relationship between web pages to more accurately determine their position in the ranking.
In the year 1997 registered the domain Google.com, and a year later that project was already available on the web.
2. The origin of the term Google
Google celebrates its birthday on September 27, since it was on that date in 1998 when they officially launched their search engine, although in reality, the true history of Google originates on September 15, 1997 when Google com is registered as a domain. Its curious name is a variation of the mathematical term googol (“gúgol”), which represents a followed by 100 zeros, a gigantic number, almost infinite. The name has always hinted that the main goal of Google founders Brin and Page is to organize an endless amount of information on the Internet and for this list to make sense.
As explained from Stanford University: “Sean Anderson (one of Page and Brin’s partners) and Larry Page were in their office, using the whiteboard, trying to think of a good name, something to do with indexing a huge amount of data. Sean verbally suggested the word “googolplex,” and Larry responded with “googol.” Sean was sitting at his computer terminal, so he ran a search of the Internet’s domain name registration database to see if the newly suggested name was still available for registration and use. Sean made the mistake of looking for the name written as “google.com”, which he found available. Larry liked the name, and within hours he took the step of registering the name “google.” com «for him and Sergey»
3.BackRub
But actually Google was originally called BackRub (“back massage”), to refer to links (backlinks) that a search engine could offer. This name did not convince them too much, so in a later brainstorming exercise they decided to change the name to Google.
4. Page Rank
Continuing with these curiosities about their names, we come to Page Rank, a rating system that measures the authority of websites by Google. so this name It does not refer to “page ranking”, but to one of the co-founders of Google, Larry Page.
5. Stan the pet dinosaur
If the city of Vigo has a Dinoseto, then Google also has its own pet dinosaur. Strolling through Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, we can find exposed the skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus Rex they call Stan and whom they consider the official mascot. It is 10 meters long and is named after the creator of the Marvel superheroes, Stan Lee. The founders bought it to remind workers that don’t let google go extinctthat even the most extraordinary creatures can disappear.
6. Google pampers its workers
If any US resident Google employee dies while with the company, then their spouse is given a check for the 50% of your take-home pay over the next decade. The measure applies to any Google employee, regardless of their rank or seniority in the company. Similarly, the spouse can access the company stock package to which the deceased employee was entitled. All these measures have favored great talents passing through the company, as in the case of Peter Szulczewski, founder of .
7. Google trolling with Gmail
In the early days of Google’s history, the Gmail email system was used internally for two years before being introduced to the public in 2004. It was intentionally released on April 1 (April Fool’s GivesY) by Google to be thought to be a joke… and it worked. This service surprised many at the time due to its Storage capacitywhich far exceeded what Hotmail offered.
8. The 20% – 5% rule
Since its inception, Google has used the 20%-5% rule. This means that if at least 20% of people use a feature, it is taken out of its beta phase and is implanted. And if at least 5% of people employ a search preference, it will be included in the “advanced preferences”.
9. The first Google Doodle
A basic event in the history of Google is the appearance of its first Doodle, which was really a out of office message. It was created by its founders to warn that during a weekend in August 1998, they would be in the Burning Man Festival in Nevada, USA. This change was to indicate to users that in the event of any issue, it could not be fixed quickly.
10. The verb ‘google’
The first time the expression “google something” was used as a verb on television was during an episode of the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the October 15, 2002. Thus, in 2006, ‘Google’ was added to the dictionary Oxford English Dictionary as a transitive verb. The company went into litigation over it, fearing it would affect the brand, and lost.
11. Google in 150 languages
In May 2000, it launched its first versions in other 10 languages (French, German, Italian, Swedish, Finnish, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Norwegian and Danish). Currently the search service is available in 150 languages.
12. Google, the great investor
Since 2010, this giant has been acquiring around two companies a month. Buy startups and other interesting companies that are complementary related to renewable energies, technology motorsports, etc. The three most expensive purchases of companies in the entire history of Google have been companies like Motorola, and Youtube. One of his last big acquisitions was that of (about 1,700 million euros). Here you can see from Google.
13. Classic games and easter eggs
Google likes to play games, and over its more than 20 years it has accumulated many hidden games so that users can have fun. Many of these games appeared for an anniversary, but to the delight of many they are still available. One of them was Atari Breakout, which appeared in ‘Google Images’. Another is the famous dinosaur Game, that pops up to entertain you when you’re offline.
14. Google Ads, one of the great events
One of the great events in the history of Google is the appearance of Google Ads in the year 2000. The option of Google ads It is the main source of income for the platform. and makes it the most important advertising medium worldwide. In fact, in 2018 alone, it entered more euros in advertising.
15. How much do we Google?
They are dizzying numbers, but in Google everything is gigantic. In 2019 they were registered 2 billion (yes, 2,000,000,000,000) searches. If you’re still curious, you can take a look at his statistics in real time.
16. Nooglers and Dooglers
Currently, Google has around 100,000 employees and has always defined itself as a business pet-friendly. As a curiosity: Google calls new employees nooglers and those who take their dog to work, dooglers.
17. Google’s first office was, of course, a garage
Fulfilling the stereotype and romanticism of Silicon Valley startups, Google’s first place of work was a garage located in Menlo Park in California, which they rented from the current YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki.
Google’s first office was in a garage.
The company’s sixth employee made this video tour of the office in 1998:
— Jon Erlichman (@JonErlichman)
18. Google provides free Wi-Fi to an entire city
Since 2006, Google provide Free Wi-Fi to Mountain Viewthe California city where its headquarters are located.
19. From Google you can see the sky, the Earth and Mars
In Google Maps, if you select the satellite view and zoom out to the maximum, you will be able to see the planet earth from space with shadows in real time. And if you don’t have enough with the Earth, in Google Mars you will see a virtual map of the surface of Mars. On the other hand, there is also the option of GoogleSkya tool like Google Maps that allows you to explore stars, constellations, galaxies and planets in great detail.
20. Google has its own satellite
Yes, in September 2008 a new satellite was launched into space that is responsible for capturing images for Google Earth and Google Maps. Is named GeoEye-1 and orbits the Earth at 680 kilometers Tall.
21. How many pages are there on the Internet?
Early in Google’s history, the platform was capable of processing a few 50 pages per second, now it can process millions of pages in that time. According to Google, currently there are about 2,000 million operational pages In Internet.
22. The most popular search terms in Google history
It sounds paradoxical but the most searched term on the platform in Google’s first year (1999) was: ‘What is Google?‘.
Likewise, some of the most popular searches per year throughout the history of Google have been: ‘What is the 2000 effect? (2000); ‘How do you tie a tie knot?’ (2001); ‘Is Pluto still a planet?’ (2006); ‘Translate love’ (2009); ‘How do you pronounce GIF? or ‘What is a selfie?’ (2014).
In the year , the most searched word was, without surprise, ‘World Cup‘. In 2019 that honor corresponded, curiously, to a little-known sport in Spain, but massively followed in India and other countries with a British tradition: cricket. In Spain, the winners were the general elections. Of course, in 2020 the most searched was “corona virus”.
23. Google’s physical store
This space will be located in the Chelsea neighborhood, New Yorkjust below the offices that the internet giant has in the largest city in the United States, and will be used so that the company display your variety of Google products: Pixel phones, their Pixelbook laptops, the new range of Nest smart speakers, Fitbit devices and more.
Did you already know this information about the history of Google? How about?
Image: Depositphotos
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