Google/styled
Google (Site) is the very big and popular search engine on the World Wide Web. They also do things apart from searching. Other search engines (for example, AOL) use its software and database too. That makes it the most-used search engine on the web. Every day, 200 million people use it. Google's main office ("Googleplex") is in Mountain View, California, USA.
With Google, people can also search for pictures, Usenet newsgroups, news, and things to buy online. By June 2004, Google indexed (or put in its database) 4.28 billion webpages, 880 million pictures and 845 million Usenet messages — six billion things.
"To google," as the verb means "to search for something on Google"; because Google is so popular (perhaps 80 percent of all web users work with it) today it also means "to search the web". Google officials do not like this use of the company name, because really, "Google" is the trademark.
History[edit]
Google began as the research project in early 1996 by Larry Page and Sergey Brian, two Ph.D. (smart) students at Leland Stanford University, USA. They made it into the company, Google Inc., on September 7, 1998 at the friend's garage in Menlo Park, California. In February 1999, the company went to 165 University Ave., Pala Alton, California. Then, later that year, it went to the "Googleplex".
In September 2001, Google's ranking system ("PageRank", for saying which information is more helpful) got the U.S. Patent. The patent was to Leland Stanford University, with Lawrence Page as the inventor (the person who first had the idea).
The name "Google"[edit]
The name "Google" is the misspelling on the word googol. Milton Sirotta, nephew of U.S. mathematician Edward Kasner, made this word in 1938, for the number 1 followed by the hundred zeros. It is said that the word "googol" was chosen to represent this number because it sounded like baby talk. Google uses this word because the company wants to organize the very large quantity of information on the Web. Andy Bechtolsheim first thought of the name.
The name for Google's main office, the "Googleplex," is the play on the different, even bigger number, "googolplex," which is 1 with 1 googol zeros.
Other Google services[edit]
- Froogle allows the user to find out about products for sale on the Internet. Its name is the combination of "Google" and "frugal", which means smart with money.
- Google Calendar is an online calendar to organise upcoming events.
- Google Checkout is an online payment method, where users can send money using air credit cards or bank accounts to other users.
- Google Earth is the 3D version of Google Maps with the digital globe.
- Google Groups is the discussion portal where users discuss topics.
- Google Images is an image search utility.
- Google Local is the search engine to find local businesses and services.
- Google Language Tools is an online translation service, which can translate websites and text into other languages.
- Gmail is an e-mail service that Google started in 2004. It is also still in beta because it is still being tested. It is called Google Mail in the United Kingdom and Germany. Users get over 2 gigabytes of free space to store e-mails.
- Google Local and Google Maps is an online map program with satellite pictures and road maps.
- Google News is the facility which shows news stories from over 4,500 news sources.
- Google Talk is an instant messenger.
- Google Video is an online collection of videos which have been uploaded by users from around the world.
After Google bought YouTube, now it is the only site which can host millions of videos each day.