Sergey Brin and Larry Page in 2003. JOKER/Martin Magunia/ullstein bild via Getty Images
Today, few names are as ubiquitous as Google. The term “Google” is not just a company name, it is a verb synonymous with web search, think “google”. Here’s how it happened.
In 1995, for technicians, the web had taken off. Then people realized that they had to find ways to search the web. I was already an old hand at Internet research. I had already started using the ancestor of the internet, ARPANET. And our search tools in 1995 were, well, horrible.
Still, compared to what we had had so far, they were fantastic. Before devoting myself to writing, I did my graduate work using early online database systems, such as NASA RECON, Dialog, and OCLC, for my research. Then, as the Internet grew, it became possible to perform searches using programs such as Archie, Gopher, and the Wide Area Information Server (WAIS).
Yahoo!, a directory more than a search engine
However, when the web came along, people wanted better tools that were easier to use. The first of these to gain popularity was not a search engine per se, but an internet directory. You know it today as Yahoo.
The first true search engine, which combined website crawling, indexing and searching, was the obscure JumpStation in 1993.
JumpStation was quickly followed in 1994 by many other search engines, in the following order: Infoseek, WebCrawler and Lycos. The arrival of AltaVista at the end of 1995 changed everything. AltaVista was the first dominant search engine.
AltaVista, the first search engine to establish itself
AltaVista, with its simple search interface that any contemporary Google user would recognize at first glance, revolutionized search. You could suddenly find what you wanted on the web without knowing where it was or being a master of Boolean expressions.
During its brief period of glory, from 1996 to 1997, AltaVista was used by everyone. Its owner, DEC, even offered other Internet services, such as a local version of AltaVista for your PC or server and an e-mail service. Does this sound like another big Internet search company?
Yes of course you think of Google.
And Google was only so much better in its early days than AltaVista. But AltaVista has been cursed. Literally. Poor management and constant changes – five owners in five years.
AltaVista misfortune benefited a couple of Stanford students
AltaVista’s misfortune benefited a couple of Stanford University graduate students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. They met in 1995… and didn’t get along at all. But the following year, they discovered they had common interests and began working in their dorm room on an online search engine with the unlikely name Backrub.
Luckily, they renamed their project Google. This name is derived from the word “googol”. A googol is the name for the number 1, followed by 100 zeros.
But this name change was not enough to make Google popular. The real trick was devising a new method for organizing and classifying the wealth of information available on the World Wide Web. Back in the day, search engines ranked websites based on the number of times a search term appeared on the page. Page and Brin believed that this method was flawed because it did not produce the most relevant results.
Casper the ghost, proof of the relevance of PageRank
Instead, the duo came up with the revolutionary idea of an algorithm called “PageRank.” Named in honor of Larry Page, PageRank is based on a simple but revolutionary principle: the importance of a web page can be determined by the number of links pointing to it. In other words, a page is considered valuable if many other pages link to it, especially if those pages are themselves considered important.
First written in Java and Python and running on Intel Pentiums Sun Ultras and Linux computers, PageRank was a game changer. Instead of just counting keywords, it evaluates the quality and relevance of web pages. This approach resulted in more accurate and useful research results. This is how Google began to dominate other search engines of the time.
The first Google search, and the one that showed the difference with AltaVista, was for the then president of Stanford University, “Gerhard Casper.” The main improvement? AltaVista got results for the cartoon character Casper the Friendly Ghost, while Google found the university official.
On September 4, 1998, Google was born.
The first Doodle made from the mud of Burning Man
Aware of the potential of their creation, Page and Brin sought initial financing and obtained an initial investment of $100,000 from Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun, in August 1998. With this investment, they rented a garage in suburban Menlo Park, California, owned by their friend and future employee #16 Susan Wojcicki. On September 4, 1998, Google was born.
Google
But first, Page and Brin went to Burning Man. Then, as now, that’s what Californians do in tech. To let people know what they were doing, they incorporated the famous Burning Man character into their logo. The first Google Doodle was born. Today, Google owns more than half of the festival — the mud and all.
Word quickly spread that this new search engine was giving superior results. As I wrote in December 1998 for PC Magazine, “Google ‘has an uncanny knack for returning extremely relevant results'”.
Excite, could have acquired Google for the modest sum of $750,000 in 1999
By the end of 1999, Google was processing over 3 million search queries per day. With its clear interface, lightning-fast searches and relevant results, Google has quickly become the preferred search engine for Internet users around the world. Nothing else could compete with it. AltaVista struggled until 2010, but it had long been undead.
Ironically, another early search giant, Excite, could have acquired Google for a mere $750,000 in 1999. But Excite CEO George Bell rejected Page and Brin’s offer. Arguably, this is the biggest tech acquisition failure of all time.
Of course, it wasn’t until 2000 that Google turned Internet search into gold by selling keyword-based advertising. While its rivals were collapsing with the dotcom bubble, Google was making money.
When Google enters pop culture
It was also well on its way to entering popular culture. The same year, in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Willow asks Buffy, “Did you google her yet?” In 2006, the word “Google” entered the Oxford English Dictionary.
But Google didn’t stop at search and advertising. As the company grew, so did its ambitions. Google has launched a series of innovative products and services. These include Gmail in 2004 and, through acquisition, Google Maps and the Android operating system in 2005. Each offering has solidified Google’s position at the forefront of the technological revolution .
In 2004, Google went public with one of the most anticipated IPOs in tech history. This transaction consolidated its financial position and marked its transition from a startup to a major player in the corporate world. Today, Google, under its new name Alphabet, has a market cap of over $1.7 trillion. If you had bought $1,000 worth of Google stock when it went public on August 19, 2004, it would be worth more than $1 million today.
The motto “Don’t be evil” today seems more ironic than ambitious
But all was not rosy. Google has had its share of problems and scandals. The motto “Don’t be evil”, which appeared in the company’s code of conduct at the time of its IPO, today seems more ironic than ambitious.
As the company has expanded, it has faced issues related to privacy, data collection and antitrust concerns. Critics argued that Google’s vast reach and influence posed potential threats to user privacy and market competition.
With the rise of generative AI, particularly Microsoft’s ChatGPT and OpenAI, some believe Google may finally be dethroned from its throne as search king. However, according to search company Statista, as of July 2023, Google still dominates the desktop search market with 83.49%. OpenAI-powered Bing, with 9.19% of the global desktop search market, is growing, but Google is in no danger of losing its top spot anytime soon.
Google is 25 years old today, and I think it will continue to operate for another 25 years. Whether we love it or hate it, it is an integral part of our lives.
Source: “ZDNet.com”