About GOOGLE

Google Inc.

Larry and Sergey named the search engine they built “Google,” a play on the word “googol,” the mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeros. Google Inc. was born in 1998, when Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim wrote a check for $100,000 to that entity—which until then didn’t exist. 

Out of the office

The first “Google doodle” in 1998 was intended to let visitors to the homepage know that Google’s minders were offline at the Burning Man Festival in Nevada. There’s now a team of “doodlers” and we’ve posted more than 1,000 different doodles on homepages worldwide. 

Do it Yourself ads
In 2000, we introduced AdWords, a self-service program for creating online ad campaigns. Today our advertising solutions, which include display, mobile and video ads as well as the simple text ads we introduced more than a decade ago, help thousands of businesses grow and be successful. 

 

Gmail-no joke
On April Fools' Day in 2004, we launched Gmail. Our approach to email included features like speedy search, huge amounts of storage and threaded messages. 

Gone Public
Our Initial Public Offering of 19,605,052 shares of Class A common stock took place on Wall Street on August 18, 2004.

Location
We acquired digital mapping company Keyhole in 2004, and launched Google Maps and Google Earth in 2005. Today Maps also features live traffic, transit directions and street-level imagery, and Earth lets you explore the ocean and the moon. 


Broadcast yourself
In 2006, we acquired online video sharing site YouTube. Today 60 hours of video are uploaded to the site every minute. Cat videos, citizen journalism, political candidacy and double rainbows have never been the same.






 

The little green robot arrives
Amidst rumors of a “Gphone,” we announced Android—an open platform for mobile devices—and the Open Handset Alliance, in 2007.

 

 


CEO and Chairman
Larry Page, Google’s original CEO until 2001, took up the title again in April 2011. Eric Schmidt, now our executive chairman, served in the role for 10 years.




 

Google+
In June 2011, we introduced the Google+ project, aimed at bringing the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to the web, and making all of Google better by including people, their relationships and their interests.