by Alex Kelley

Created on: September 12, 2009

With its revolutionizing search algorithms, Google is one of the most well-knows Internet companies. Numerous books have been written about it, in order to either present its history or to teach beginning users how to use its constantly growing number of applications.

Google's beginnings date from over a decade ago. In 1996, Sergey Brin and Larry Page from Stanford University started work on a search engine meant to avoid the exploitation of the then-current search engines by the repetition of keywords on web pages. After operating for a while on the university's servers and under a different name, Google finally comes into existence as a company, with the investment of Andy Bechtolsheim, the co-founder of Sun. September 4, 1998 is the incorporation date for this new company, which is then quickly recognized by

specialty publications for its meaningful results for the search entered.

From here on, the company continues to grow and to acquire more and more users that enjoy the convenience of getting most of the time exactly the kind of information that they were asking for. Meanwhile, Google starts "understanding" other languages than just English, thus expanding internationally at an even more rapid rate than before. For a while, the search engine is focused solely on algorithmic search and is deriving its income from licensing this technology to Yahoo! and other third-party sites. Slowly but surely, in 2000 Google introduces AdWords, a self-service ad program meant to increase website traffic - and Google's income. Another milestone feature is released in 2002: Google Labs, the virtual place for the research and development team to post their newest ideas in beta format.

By 2004, the verb "to google" was becoming more and more used as a synonym to "to search". That is the year of Google's initial public offer, which registered an offering price of 85 dollars; mere change, if it is compared to the historical high of 741.79 dollars, on November 6, 2007. From here on, more offices around the world and an even larger number of applications come into place: news, blogger, book search, Gmail, Google maps, SMS, Google Talk, Orkut online community, Picasa for pictures, Google Calendar, Google Sites, Translator, Chrome web browser... a very long list of apps to address all demands and to satisfy the inventive nature of the company's engineers. There are even applications catering to business needs, with Google Docs and Postini (for e-mail security) in the lead.

Google's revenue model relies primarily on ads, more specifically offering ads that closely match the web searcher's interest. By basing its search model on search keywords rather than banner images, Google is open to a virtually infinite long tail of words and word combinations, thus receiving income from a very large customer base. AdSense and Pay-Per-Click advertising are based on a simple and very cheap self-service model, with virtually anybody being able to buy a keyword in an automated auction process.

Although Google is not the first company to offer a search engine, it has grown extremely fast so that it currently has the largest market share in this business, with over 80% at the global level in mid-2009. What comes next is hard to say. Google is by far one of the most inventive and adaptable companies currently on the market, so it is likely that new applications and solutions will continue to appear.

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