What Is Google's Age?

Google has become such an integral part of our lives that it feels like it has always existed. But how old is Google? The company's roots go back to the 1990s, and since its inception, it has grown into an essential tool for internet users worldwide.

While Google's headquarters is located in Mountain View, California, its influence is as vast as Mount Olympus, thanks to its remarkable success and continuous expansion. The search engine, which processes more queries than any other, is just the beginning of its ever-growing empire. Over time, Google has launched a wide array of groundbreaking tools and services, including Gmail, Google Apps, AdWords, and AdSense.

Discover the fascinating history of one of the world's most impactful companies.

Sergey Brin and Larry Page Meet

What’s truly remarkable is not just the success Google has achieved but the speed at which it happened. While IBM’s history stretches back to 1911, and Microsoft and Apple emerged in the mid-1970s, Google’s story is much more recent.

The world’s leading search engine has a relatively short history: Google’s journey began in 1995.

It all started when Sergey Brin, a 21-year-old Stanford student, gave a campus tour to Larry Page, a recent University of Michigan graduate who was just a year older. Rumor has it that the two didn’t get along and argued throughout the tour. However, it couldn’t have been all bad, as Page decided to enroll at Stanford and pursue his Ph.D. in computer science.

Page explored various topics for his doctoral thesis before choosing the World Wide Web. Though expanding in the mid-1990s, the web was still largely uncharted territory. Page focused on the web's link structure, questioning if links between pages could determine their importance. He aimed to create an algorithm—a mathematical framework—to evaluate and quantify every backlink online.

By 1996, Page was deeply immersed in the project, but the mathematical complexity was daunting. He sought help from Brin, the confident grad student who had first shown him around Stanford. Together, they refined the math to rank website links based on their significance.

They called their algorithm PageRank and integrated it into BackRub, a search engine they developed. BackRub began crawling the web, starting with Stanford's homepage and expanding to the 10 million pages online at the time.

Partners in PageRank: Page, Brin and Stanford

A year after integrating the algorithm into BackRub, the duo realized they had struck gold. The search results from BackRub were, in their view, far superior to those of other engines. They also understood that as the web expanded, their results would improve further, since more pages meant more links and better accuracy in identifying relevance.

They chose to rename BackRub to something that captured the enormity of their vision. They landed on Google, inspired by "googol," the mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeros.

While the Google name is catchy and unique, the real cornerstone of the company is the PageRank algorithm. On January 9, 1998, Page and Brin filed a patent with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Patent No. 6,285,999, titled "Method for node ranking in a linked database," credits Larry Page as the inventor and assigns ownership to Stanford University.

What does this imply? It means Stanford holds the patent for the page-ranking process, and Page and Brin license it for their commercial use.

From BackRub to Google to Alphabet, Inc.

Over the years, Google has undergone several name changes. Originally known as BackRub, it evolved into Google. In 2015, as part of a restructuring, Google, LLC transformed into Alphabet, Inc. The Google name continues to be used, but it now operates under its parent company.

Getting Technical

In 2001, Google handed over its algorithm code to Amit Singhal, who had joined the company from AT&T Labs just a year earlier. Singhal revamped the algorithm, enabling the Google search engine to integrate additional ranking factors more efficiently.

The Google search engine is continuously refined. For instance, in 2007, the company introduced universal search, allowing users to access links to various media types on a single results page. Google holds hundreds of patents for the mathematical methods used to deliver more accurate search results.

Google Images is another notable innovation. While images are now a key component of search engines, this wasn't always the case. Google launched Google Images in 2000 after Jennifer Lopez's iconic Versace dress sparked massive online interest. Recognizing the lack of a direct way for users to find such images, the Search team created Google Images.

Venturing Beyond Web Search

Beyond its search engine, Google offers a range of services like Gmail, Google Maps, Google Docs, and Google Analytics. These innovations stem from a team of talented engineers. While not every idea succeeds, some, such as Google News, created by Google Chief Scientist Krishna Bharat, have become major successes.

When reflecting on Google's invention, it's useful to break it into two parts. Larry Page invented the Google search engine, with significant contributions from Sergey Brin. However, the diverse, global company we recognize today is the result of a collective effort by a team of exceptional engineers.

Ultimately, every idea must gain approval from Page and Brin, the visionary leaders who have crafted one of the most iconic technology brands and compelling business narratives in history.

The Investor and the Inventor

Launching a company requires more than just a brilliant idea—it demands substantial funding. Larry Page and Sergey Brin initially struggled to secure investors for their groundbreaking search engine. Their luck changed when they met Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, who wrote a $100,000 check to "Google, Inc."

Unable to deposit the funds immediately, Page and Brin incorporated the company and waited two tense weeks for the seed money to clear. The rest, as they say, is a defining chapter in internet history.