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It’s Google’s 19th birthday – here’s to the rise of a tech giant

We’re celebrating the rise and rise of the tech giant – Google. What’s the craziest thing you’ve Googled? We promise we won’t tell.

It’s hard to imagine a world without Google. Gone are the days of arguing with friends over burning questions such as “do penguins have knees?” and “who was that person in that movie I can’t remember from three years ago?”. Now, one can Google it in a manner of seconds and have the manner resolved – or fall down the rabbit hole of search.

Google has gone from being a simple search engine to something so popular that the word “Google” is a verb used to describe searching the internet. Yet Google is so much more than that. It’s created a wealth of new technology jobs including search engine optimisation (SEO) specialists, changed the way we work, transformed the way we collaborate, influenced the news and stories we read, made sure we never get lost via Google Maps, boosted the economy and so much more.

So, on Google’s Birthday this September 27, let’s look at its humble origins and how it’s changed the world.

Origins and rise of Google

Google’s story began with a chance meeting at Stanford University in 1995. Larry Page was considering attending the college for a grad school program, and Sergey Brin, a current student, was tasked with showing him around the campus. The pair state that they disagreed on everything they discussed in their first meeting, yet despite this, struck a partnership the following year. Much like the story of Mark Zuckerberg, Page and Brin worked from their dorm rooms to build a search engine that used links to determine the importance of individual website pages on the World Wide Web.

They called the project Backrub.

Luckily that was later changed to Google. The name was a take on the mathematical expression for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros. According to Page and Brin, it aptly reflected their mission to “organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

Google’s rise can be attributed to their service orientated model and ability invest in ahead-of-the-curve technology. In 2004, they invested heavily in their Google Maps project, bought Android as part of their mobile strategy and purchased YouTube in 2006, which to this day is the internet’s second largest search engine (next to Google).

Craziest things people have Googled

Some of us might think that we have a cringeworthy search history, our eccentric ponderings have nothing on this bizarre and somewhat confusing collection.

  1. Our pets heads are falling off – if this is true, someone best call the vet, not Google
  2. Why should I never put a sock in a toaster? – If you must ask, you probably don’t want to know the answer
  3. Why isn’t 11 pronounced onety one? – We really want to know the answer to this one too
  4. What would happen if I hired two private investigators to follow each other? Good question
  5. What would a chair look like if your knees bent the other way? All kinds of chair scenarios are running through our heads

iFactory is an award winning independent creative and technology agency, dedicated to delivering tailored digital solutions to get you ranking on Google. For all your digital strategy needs, contact the team at iFactory today.

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