Founded by two Stanford university graduate students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google has turned 15 today! The duo met at university in 1995 and founded the internet search engine company on 4th September 1998.
Started in a small garage in Menlo Park, Calf. in 1998, today this search engine company has spread across 40 countries across the globe having more than 70 offices worldwide.
The foundation of the company gave a major shift to the way people search and retrieve information online and opened the doors for a whole new era called Search Engine Optimisation.
Surprising facts you might know about Google
The start and the growth story of the company is as interesting and fascinating as the company itself!
1995 – 2000:
Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin met at Stanford university. They did not find any single common interest in between them and disagree about everything during their first meet.
The name of the company at the time of incorporation was BackRub which was later renamed to Google.
The turning point in choosing the name Google was a $100,000 check from Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim.
Came up with mulch-lingual search ability, formed partnership with Yahoo! to become their default search engine. Launched Google Adwords, a paid ads platform that ushered a whole new era of online marketing for businesses, especially for SEO Firms. Today, Google Adwords is Google’s top earning product that yields about 97% of their total revenues annually!
2001-2005:
Google launched image search.
By now, the company has grown so much on public mind that searching on internet became the synonym of Google!
In 2003, Google launched their first ever Code Jam, a global level web development competition for web developers.
In 2004, Google launched orkut – their first ever social networking site.
And also shifted their global headquarter office to Googleplex in Mountain View, Calif.
In the same year, Google also brought up their famed Initial Public Offering on Wall St.
In 2005, Google launched Google Maps.
Launched Google Analytics, a web traffic tracking and analysis tool.
2006-2010
In 2006, Google launched Google Calender, Google Trends, Picasa Web Album and introduced Docs and Spreadsheets for Google Docs.
In 2007, Google added Street View to its Google Maps functionality. Google also introduced Google Maps in Australia same year.
Google also launched its most popular mobile operating platform Android in 2007. And on their 15th anniversary today, Google announced Android KitKat– their latest Android version!
In 2008, Google launched Google Site Search that enables site owners to integrate Google search box on their websites.
Google also introduced their popular opensource web browser Google Chrome in September 2008.
In 2009, Google added a new dashboard to Google Places, a must have local listing tool for small and local businesses for Local SEO and local marketing.
In 2010, Google introduced Google Instant preview and opened Chrome Web Store for users.
2011-2013 (So far)
In 2011, Google+, Google’s latest social networking platform goes live! The very same year, Google acquired Motorola to supercharge its Android platform.
In 2012, Google rolled out Google Search plus Your World that integrates search engine with gmail and Google+ users.
Google also unveiled their ambitious Google Glass project very same year. Google Drive was also rolled out in 2012.
In the beginning of 2013, Google redesigned Google Images.
Google added application sign-in feature to Google+ platform.
Google turned 15!
