by J. Butler, Applecore Content Development Specialist
Google has become such a mainstay that it would hard to remember a world without it. In fact, the day that we all knew Google wasn’t just the latest technological trend probably came sometime in July 2005---when “Google” entered the English language as a verb:
goo·gle • \gü-gəl\: to use the Google search engine to obtain information about (as a person) on the World Wide Web.
Late last year, Google announced the introduction of Google Flu Trends, a service that will take the IP addresses of users searching for flu-related queries, compile them, and track the active areas of flu outbreaks weeks before the official data from the Center for Disease Control is released.
As of May 2008, Hitwise reports that Google is the most used search engine on the web accounting for 68.29% of all US searches, way ahead of the closest competition—Yahoo, for example, trails behind at 19.95%. But did you ever stop to think about the path Google took to become the household name that it is today?
Older search engines would only rank the importance of a site by how many times a search term appears on it—if you searched for “apple pie,” you’d be given pages based only on how often “apple pie” appeared on the site…not based on the overall quality level.
But Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two PhD. students out of
And so, in January 1996, Google began as the research project of two students. The germ of their idea was a search engine that could create a more accurate ranking system by looking at the relationships between websites rather than just the web content alone. Revolutionary? We think so.
After much testing, the company was incorporated as Google Inc. on September 4, 1998 (making them Applecore’s slightly older brother). Their unofficial corporate motto? “Don’t be evil.”
Google’s approach paved the way for Search Engine Optimization (or SEO). Search Engine Optimization is just what it sounds like—it’s enriching a website with the right tools (like keywords, links and content) to place it higher in the page rankings of Google and other search engines. Using SEO properly is two parts science, one part art, helping to achieve top rankings organically (at no cost). SEO has transformed into an incredible tool for attracting both the right kind and the greatest volume of traffic for a website.
It’s an exciting wait to see what other innovations Google will cook up next, because with every new invention comes inspiration from seeing people be their most creative, most insightful selves.
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