Google story

The History of Google

 

Vocabulary

spider relevant consist
crawl access judge (2)
boost share (2) popularity
utilize spring up brainchild
phase attempt establish
indicate founder demonstrate
detail instead to the tune of
brain overtake

 

Google

Everyone who logs onto the internet knows Google. Not only is it the most popular search engine, but the most accessed website in the world.

Many people could not image life without Google.

But what exactly is a search engine?

Search Engine

A search engine consists of a program that looks for webpages on the internet.

Users can type in anything, and Google will find things which are relevant to the keywords — and his or her “big data”.

A search engine consists of several parts: a spider software that “crawls” through the internet, looking at websites; a database to store the information that the spider finds; and algorithms (instructions to a computer) that judge or “rank” websites based on the user’s keywords.

Google then displays the most relevant sites on a user’s screen.

SEO

An entire industry, known as SEO, or search engine optimization, has sprung up that attempts to place an individual or organization’s website on the first results page, thereby boosting its popularity.

The Development of Google

Google is the brainchild of Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The two had met each other in 1995 as graduate students in the computer science department of Stanford University in California, US.

In 1996, they developed a search engine program which they called BackRub.

BackRub received good reviews form computer users.

The Next Phase

Larry and Sergey then began working on the next phase. The pair made a network using cheap, used and borrowed computers.

To access extra computing power, they utilized disks.

The two named their new program “Google”. This comes from the word “googol”, the number 1 followed by 100 zeros, indicating the huge amount of information that a search engine has to look at.

Andy Bechtolsheim

Larry and Sergey showed their creation to Sun Microsystems founder, Andy Bechtolsheim.

After a brief demonstration of Google, Bechtolsheim said, “Instead of us discussing all the details, why don’t I just write you a check?”

He did — to the tune of $100,000.

New Company

Within two weeks, Sergey and Larry establish a new company. They raised another $900,000.

In September 1998, Google Inc. opened an office in California’s Silicon Valley, and the website Google.com officially began as a search engine.

At the time, it was processing 10,000 searches a day; by 2011, over 1 billion visitors logged on to Google daily.

Most Valued Brand

The company established itself the world’s largest search engine by 2000 and went public on the stock market at $85 per share in August 2004, and soon raised $1.67 billion.

By 2014, Google overtook Apple as the world’s most valued brand.

Google has become so much a part of people’s lives that the Oxford University Press added “google” as a verb in its English Dictionary.

 

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Questions

1. What is Google?

2. What is a search engine? What are its components?

3. Search engine optimazation is a big industry. Is this correct or wrong? Why are SEOs so much in demand?

4. Google was developed by computer engineers working in a high-tech laboratory of a large corporation. True or false?

5. Was Google their first search engine project?

6. The name “Google” came from the sound babies make. Yes or no?

7. In the beginning, did Sergey and Larry need sponsors (backers, investors)?

8. Has Google’s growth been spectacular?
 
 

A. I visit and use Google more than any other website. Yes or no?

B. Are you glad there is only one dominant search engine and not many competing ones?

C. Google is too strong and powerful. Do you agree? Is there something dark or secretive about Google?

D. What will happen to Google in the future?

E. Google, Facebook, Youtube, Wikipedia, Amazon are not “real” industries and economies, but “fake, virtual” industries and economies. What do you think?
 
 
 

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