Google – the company that comes to our rescue for most of our queries with its excellent search engine, just turned 21. It has definitely come a long way since inception. We know about its famous developments such as Google Maps, Google Play, Google Pay and more that we very willingly accommodate for our daily needs. Also, the recent product developments by Google that include Google Home, Google Chrome cast, Google Pixel are gaining popularity in the market. Let us go over some lesser-known facts about Google.
21 lesser-known Google Facts on its 21st birthday!
1.
The brand’s conceptualization began back in 1996. Two Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin from Stanford University created Google while working on a research project.
2.
They initially created a search page with a system analysing the relationship among websites and named it ‘Backrub’ (now Google) based on its theory of checking the number of backlinks
3.
The name ‘Google’ is derived from the mathematical term ‘googol’; which means 1 followed by 100 zeroes. The indication was to signify that google would represent that amount of endless information.
4.
The company ‘Google’ was incorporated on September 04, 1998 and was based in Susan Wojcicki’s garage in Menlo Park, California. Its offices were later moved to Palo Alto California in 1999. This might come as a startling fact about Google.
5.
Google was initially run under the domains of Stanford University and later registered its own on September 15, 1997.
Initially, the operations for Google were run under the domains of Standford University.
6.
Google now owns domains for the common terms that may be misspelt as the company’s name, such as Gooogle.com, gogle.com and goglr.com.
7.
In the year 2004, Google’s first IPO was announced where they offered 19,605,052 shares at a price of $85 per share.
8.
According to LifeWire, Google has maintained the position of being the world’s most visited website for this year. It has also been one of the top searched items on other search engines.
9.
Google’s popularity has led its way to enter the common lexicon. It is a fact about Google that is has been added as a verb to Merriam-Webster dictionary.
10.
‘Googleplex’, The company’s headquarters, is based in California’s Silicon Valley.
11.
Google is the first tech company that built the stepping stones for a better experience for its employees at the workplace. It offers free meals and allows them to bring in their dogs to work.
12.
Death benefits are granted to Google employees in the US, which specifies the receipt of 50% of their salary for the surviving spouse every year for the next decade.
13.
In 1998, The Google logo had the first capital G in green, which has later been converted to blue for the subsequent logos.
14.
In order to mark major tragedies, The Google logo goes colourless on disastrous occasions like the death of a celebrated personality or Memorial days.
15.
Many people thought that the launch of Gmail was a prank by Google as it was launched on April Fools Day.
16.
The first doodle by Google was created in August 1998 which was a burning man stick figure in order to mark the Burning Man Festival.
17.
The Nifty feature on Google’s search bar helps users to pronounce big numbers by showing it in exact word formats.
18.
The world’s major interest for the singer Jennifer Lopez’s 2000 grammy outfit, inspired the launch of Google Image Search.
19.
Facts about Google also state that after it acquired the operating system ‘Android’, it has gained the leading market share i.e almost 87% worldwide.
20.
Google rents 200 goats with a herder and a border collie as a part of its green initiatives to cut down the weed around headquarters.
21.
Google purchased 536 megawatts of wind power in November 2017 in order to make its operations run on 100% renewable energy. Findings and facts about Google state many initiatives adopted by the Company that aim towards a greater cause.
