This article is about the corporation. For the search engine, see Google search.

For
other uses, see Google (disambiguation).
Google Inc.

Type Public (NASDAQ: GOOG), (LSE: GGEA)

Menlo Park, California (September 7, 1998)
Founded [1]
Headquarters Mountain View, California, USA
Eric E. Schmidt, CEO/Director
Sergey Brin, Co-Founder, Technology
Key people President
Larry Page, Co-Founder, Products President
George Reyes, CFO
Industry Internet, Computer software
Products See list of Google products
Revenue US$10.604 billion 73% (2006)[2]
Net income US$3.077 billion 29% (2006)[2]
Total assets US$18.473 billion (2006)[2]
Total equity US$17.039 billion (2006)[2]
Employees 15,916 (September 30, 2007)[3]
Slogan Don't be evil
Website www.google.com
Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG and LSE: GGEA) is an American public corporation,
specializing in Internet search and online advertising. The company is based in Mountain
View, California, and has 15,916 full-time employees (as of September 30, 2007).[3] It is
the largest American company (by market capitalization) that is not part of the Dow
Jones Industrial Average. [4]

Google was co-founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were students at
Stanford University and the company was first incorporated as a privately held company
on September 7, 1998. Google's initial public offering took place on August 19, 2004,
raising US$1.67 billion, making it worth US$23 billion. Through a series of new product
developments, acquisitions and partnerships, the company has expanded its initial search
and advertising business into other areas, including web-based e-mail, online mapping,
office productivity, and video sharing, among others.
 Contents
[hide]

• 1 History
o 1.1 Financing and initial public offering
o 1.2 Growth
o 1.3 Philanthropy
o 1.4 Acquisitions
o 1.5 Partnerships
• 2 Products
o 2.1 Advertising
o 2.2 Applications
o 2.3 Enterprise products
• 3 Platform
• 4 Corporate affairs and culture
o 4.1 Googleplex
o 4.2 "Twenty percent" time
o 4.3 Easter eggs and April Fool's Day jokes
o 4.4 IPO and culture
• 5 Criticism
• 6 See also
• 7 References
• 8 Further reading

• 9 External links

History

Google in 1998
Main article: History of Google
Google began in January 1996, as a research project by Larry Page, who was soon joined
by Sergey Brin, two Ph.D. students at Stanford University, California.[5] They
hypothesized that a search engine that analyzed the relationships between websites would
produce better ranking of results than existing techniques, which ranked results according
to the number of times the search term appeared on a page.[6] Their search engine was
originally nicknamed "BackRub" because the system checked backlinks to estimate a
site's importance.[7] A small search engine called Rankdex was already exploring a similar
strategy.[8]

Convinced that the pages with the most links to them from other highly relevant web
pages must be the most relevant pages associated with the search, Page and Brin tested
their thesis as part of their studies, and laid the foundation for their search engine.
Originally, the search engine used the Stanford University website with the domain
google.stanford.edu. The domain google.com was registered on September 15, 1997,[9]
and the company was incorporated as Google Inc. on September 7, 1998 at a friend's
garage in Menlo Park, California. The total initial investment raised for the new company
eventually amounted to almost US$1.1 million, including a US$100,000 check by Andy
Bechtolsheim, one of the founders of Sun Microsystems.[10]

The founders originally were keen to acquire the domain "Googol.com". It was registered
to a local Silicon Valley engineer (Tim Beauchamp) who was using it as a site for math
and astronomy. He did not want to relinquish the domain at the time.[11]

In March 1999, the company moved into offices in Palo Alto, home to several other
noted Silicon Valley technology startups.[12] After quickly outgrowing two other sites, the
company leased a complex of buildings in Mountain View at 1600 Amphitheatre
Parkway from Silicon Graphics (SGI) in 2003.[13] The company has remained at this
location ever since, and the complex has since come to be known as the Googleplex (a
play on the word googolplex, a 1 followed by a googol zeros). In 2006, Google bought
the property from SGI for US$319 million.[14]

The Google search engine attracted a loyal following among the growing number of
Internet users, who liked its simple design and usability.[15] In 2000, Google began selling
advertisements associated with search keywords.[5] The ads were text-based to maintain
an uncluttered page design and to maximize page loading speed.[5] Keywords were sold
based on a combination of price bid and clickthroughs, with bidding starting at US$.05
per click.[5] This model of selling keyword advertising was pioneered by Goto.com (later
renamed Overture Services, before being acquired by Yahoo! and rebranded as Yahoo!
Search Marketing).[16][17][18] While many of its dot-com rivals failed in the new Internet
marketplace, Google quietly rose in stature while generating revenue.[5]

The name "Google" originated from a misspelling of "googol",[19][20] which refers to 10100,
the number represented by a 1 followed by one-hundred zeros. Having found its way
increasingly into everyday language, the verb "google", was added to the Merriam
Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary in 2006, meaning "to
use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet."[21][22]

A patent describing part of Google's ranking mechanism (PageRank) was granted on

September 4, 2001.[23] The patent was officially assigned to Stanford University and lists
Lawrence Page as the inventor.

Financing and initial public offering

The first funding for Google as a company was secured in the form of a US$100,000
contribution from Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, given to a
corporation which did not yet exist.[24] Around six months later, a much larger round of
funding was announced, with the major investors being rival venture capital firms
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital.[24]
Google's IPO took place on August 19, 2004.19,605,052 shares were offered at a price of
US$85 per share.[25][26] Of that, 14,142,135 (another mathematical reference as √2 ≈
1.4142135) were floated by Google and 5,462,917 by selling stockholders. The sale of
US$1.67 billion, and gave Google a market capitalization of more than US$23 billion.[27]
The vast majority of Google's 271 million shares remained under Google's control. Many
of Google's employees became instant paper millionaires. Yahoo!, a competitor of
Google, also benefited from the IPO because it owned 8.4 million shares of Google as of
August 9, 2004, ten days before the IPO.[28]

Google's stock performance after its first IPO launch has gone well, with shares hitting
US$700 for the first time on October 31, 2007,[29] due to strong sales and earnings in the
advertising market, as well as the release of new features such as the desktop search
function and it's iGoogle personalized home page.[30] The surge in stock price is fueled
primarily by individual investors, as opposed to large institutional investors and mutual
funds.[30]

The company is listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the ticker symbol GOOG
and under the London Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol GGEA

Growth

While the company's primary business interest is in the web content arena, Google has
begun experimenting with other markets, such as radio and print publications. On January
17, 2006, Google announced that its purchase of a radio advertising company "dMarc",
which provides an automated system that allows companies to advertise on the radio.[31]
This will allow Google to combine two niche advertising media—the Internet and radio
—with Google's ability to laser-focus on the tastes of consumers. Google has also begun
an experiment in selling advertisements from its advertisers in offline newspapers and
magazines, with select advertisements in the Chicago Sun-Times.[32] They have been
filling unsold space in the newspaper that would have normally been used for in-house
advertisements.

Google was added to the S&P 500 index on March 30, 2006. It replaced Burlington
Resources, a major oil producer based in Houston which was acquired by
ConocoPhillips.

Philanthropy

In 2004, Google formed a non-profit philanthropic wing, Google.org, with a start-up fund
of US$1 billion.[33] The express mission of the organization is to create awareness about
climate change, global public health, and global poverty. One of its first projects is to
develop a viable plug-in hybrid electric vehicle that can attain 100 mpg. The current
director is Dr. Larry Brilliant.[34]

Acquisitions
 See also: List of Google acquisitions

Since 2001, Google has acquired several small start-up companies, often consisting of
innovative teams and products. One of the earlier companies that Google bought was
Pyra Labs. They were the creators of Blogger, a weblog publishing platform, first
launched in 1999. This acquisition led to many premium features becoming free. Pyra
Labs was originally formed by Evan Williams, yet he left Google in 2004. In early 2006,
Google acquired Upstartle, a company responsible for the online word processor,
Writely. The technology in this product was used by Google to eventually create Google
Docs & Spreadsheets.

In February 2006, software company Adaptive Path sold Measure Map, a weblog
statistics application, to Google. Registration to the service has since been temporarily
disabled. The last update regarding the future of Measure Map was made on April 6,
2006 and outlined many of the service's known issues.[35]

In late 2006, Google bought online video site YouTube for US$1.65 billion in stock.[36]
Shortly after, on October 31, 2006, Google announced that it had also acquired JotSpot, a
developer of wiki technology for collaborative Web sites.[37]

On April 13, 2007, Google reached an agreement to acquire DoubleClick. Google agreed
to buy the company for US$3.1 billion.[38]

On July 9, 2007, Google announced that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire
enterprise messaging security and compliance company Postini.[39]

Partnerships

In 2005, Google entered into partnerships with other companies and government agencies
to improve production and services. Google announced a partnership with NASA Ames
Research Center to build up 1,000,000 square feet (93,000 m²) of offices and work on
research projects involving large-scale data management, nanotechnology, distributed
computing, and the entrepreneurial space industry.[40] Google also entered into a
partnership with Sun Microsystems in October to help share and distribute each other's
technologies.[41] The company entered into a partnership with Time Warner's AOL,[42] to
enhance each other's video search services.

The same year, the company became a major financial investor of the new .mobi top-
level domain for mobile devices, in conjunction with several other companies, including
Microsoft, Nokia, and Ericsson among others.[43] In September 2007, Google launched,
"Adsense for Mobile", a service for its publishing partners which provides the ability to
monetize their mobile websites through the targeted placement of mobile text ads,[44] and
acquired the mobile social networking site, Zingku.mobi, to "provide people worldwide
with direct access to Google applications, and ultimately the information they want and
need, right from their mobile devices."[45]
In 2006, Google and News Corp.'s Fox Interactive Media entered into a US$900 million
agreement to provide search and advertising on the popular social networking site,
MySpace.[46]

Products
Main article: List of Google products

Google has created services and tools for the general public and business environment
alike; including Web applications, advertising networks and solutions for businesses.

Advertising

Most of Google's revenue is derived from advertising programs. For the 2006 fiscal year,
the company reported US$10.492 billion in total advertising revenues and only US$112
million in licensing and other revenues.[47] Google AdWords allows Web advertisers to
display advertisements in Google's search results and the Google Content Network,
through either a cost-per-click or cost-per-view scheme. Google AdSense website owners
can also display adverts on their own site, and earn money every time ads are clicked.

Applications

Google is well-known for its web search service, which is a major factor of the
company's success. As of August 2007, Google is the most used search engine on the
web with a 53.6% market share, ahead of Yahoo! (19.9%) and Live Search (12.9%).[48]
Google indexes billions of Web pages, so that users can search for the information they
desire, through the use of keywords and operators. Google has also employed the Web
Search technology into other search services, including Image Search, Google News, the
price comparison site Google Product Search, the interactive Usenet archive Google
Groups, Google Maps, and more.

In 2004, Google launched its own free web-based e-mail service, known as Gmail.[49]
Gmail features spam-filtering technology and the capability to use Google technology to
search e-mail. The service generates revenue by displaying advertisements from the
AdWords service that are tailored to the content of the e-mail messages displayed on
screen.

In early 2006, the company launched Google Video, which not only allows users to
search and view freely available videos but also offers users and media publishers the
ability to publish their content, including television shows on CBS, NBA basketball
games, and music videos.[50] In August 2007, Google announced that it would shut down
its video rental and sale program and offer refunds and Google Checkout credits to
consumers who had purchased videos to own.

Google has also developed several desktop applications, including Google Earth, an
interactive mapping program powered by satellite and aerial imagery that covers the vast
majority of the planet. Google Earth is generally considered to be remarkably accurate
and extremely detailed. Many major cities have such detailed images that one can zoom
in close enough to see vehicles and pedestrians clearly. Consequently, there have been
some concerns about national security implications. Specifically, some countries and
militaries contend the software can be used to pinpoint with near-precision accuracy the
physical location of critical infrastructure, commercial and residential buildings, bases,
government agencies, and so on. However, the satellite images are not necessarily
frequently updated, and all of them are available at no charge through other products and
even government sources. For example, NASA and the National Geospatial-Intelligence
Agency. Some counter this argument by stating that Google Earth makes it easier to
access and research the images.

Many other products are available through Google Labs, which is a collection of
incomplete applications that are still being tested for use by the general public.

Google has promoted their products in various ways. In London, Google Space was set-
up in Heathrow Airport, showcasing several products, including Gmail, Google Earth and
Picasa.[51][52] Also, a similar page was launched for American college students, under the
name College Life, Powered by Google.[53]

In 2007, some reports surfaced that Google was planning the release of its own mobile
phone, possibly a competitor to Apple's iPhone.[54][55][56] The project, called Android
provides a standard development kit that will allow any "Android" phone to run software
developed for the Android SDK, no matter the phone manufacturer. In October 2007,
Google SMS service was launched in India allowing users to get business listings, movie
showtimes, and information by sending an SMS.

Enterprise products

In 2007, Google launched Google Apps Premier Edition, a version of Google Apps
targeted primarily at the business user. It includes such extras as more disk space for e-
mail, API access, and premium support, for a price of US$50 per user per year. A large
implementation of Google Apps with 38,000 users is at Lakehead University in Thunder
Bay, Ontario, Canada.[57]

Platform
Main article: Google platform
Google's services are run on several server farms, each consisting of thousands of low-
cost commodity computers running stripped-down versions of Linux. While the company
does not provide detailed information about its hardware, a 2006 estimate consisted of
over 450,000 servers, racked up in clusters located in data centers around the world.[58]
Corporate affairs and culture

A license plate seen in the Googleplex parking lot.

The image above is proposed for deletion. See images and media for deletion to help reach a consensus on
what to do.
Google is particularly known for its relaxed corporate culture, reminiscent of the Dot-
com boom. In January 2007 and also January 2008, it was cited by Fortune Magazine as
the #1 (of 100) best company to work for.[59] Google's corporate philosophy is based on
many casual principles including, "You can make money without doing evil", "You can
be serious without a suit," and "Work should be challenging and the challenge should be
fun." A complete list of corporate fundamentals is available on Google's website.[60]
Google's relaxed corporate culture can also be seen externally through their holiday
variations of the Google logo.

Google has been criticized for having salaries below industry standards.[61] For example,
some system administrators earn no more than US$35,000 per year – considered to be
quite low for the Bay Area job market.[62] However, Google's stock performance
following its IPO has enabled many early employees to be competitively compensated by
participation in the corporation's remarkable equity growth.[63] Google implemented other
employee incentives in 2005, such as the Google Founders' Award, in addition to offering
higher salaries to new employees. Google's workplace amenities, culture, global
popularity, and strong brand recognition have also attracted potential applicants.

After the company's IPO in August 2004, it was reported that founders Sergey Brin and
Larry Page, and CEO Eric Schmidt, requested that their base salary be cut to US$1.00.[64]
Subsequent offers by the company to increase their salaries have been turned down,
primarily because, "their primary compensation continues to come from returns on their
ownership stakes in Google. As significant stockholders, their personal wealth is tied
directly to sustained stock price appreciation and performance, which provides direct
alignment with stockholder interests."[64] Prior to 2004, Schmidt was making US$250,000
per year, and Page and Brin each earned a salary of US$150,000.[64]

They have all declined recent offers of bonuses and increases in compensation by
Google's board of directors. In a 2007 report of the United States' richest people, Forbes
reported that Sergey Brin and Larry Page were tied for #5 with a net worth of US$18.5
billion each.[65]

Googleplex
The Googleplex
Main article: Googleplex

Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California, is referred to as "the Googleplex" in

a play of words; a googolplex being 1 followed by a googol of zeros, and the HQ being a
complex of buildings (cf. multiplex, cineplex, etc). The lobby is decorated with a piano,
lava lamps, old server clusters, and a projection of search queries on the wall. The
hallways are full of exercise balls and bicycles. Each employee has access to the
corporate recreation center. Recreational amenities are scattered throughout the campus
and include a workout room with weights and rowing machines, locker rooms, washers
and dryers, a massage room, assorted video games, Foosball, a baby grand piano, a pool
table, and ping pong. In addition to the rec room, there are snack rooms stocked with
various foods and drinks.[citation needed]

Sign at the Googleplex

In 2006, Google moved into 311,000 square feet (28,900 m²) of office space in New
York City, at 111 Eighth Ave. in Manhattan.[66] The office was specially designed and
built for Google and houses its largest advertising sales team, which has been
instrumental in securing large partnerships, most recently deals with MySpace and AOL.
[66]
In 2003, they added an engineering staff in New York City, which has been
responsible for more than 100 engineering projects, including Google Maps, Google
Spreadsheets, and others.[66] It is estimated that the building costs Google US$10 million
per year to rent and is similar in design and functionality to its Mountain View
headquarters, including Foosball, air hockey, and ping-pong tables, as well as a video
game area.[66] In November 2006, Google opened offices on Carnegie Mellon's campus in
Pittsburgh.[67] By late 2006, Google also established a new headquarters for its AdWords
division in Ann Arbor, Michigan.[68]

The size of Google's search system is presently unknown; the best estimates place the
total number of the company's servers at 450,000, spread over twenty five locations
throughout the world, including major operations centers in Dublin (European Operations
Headquarters) and Atlanta, Georgia. Google is also in the process of constructing a major
operations center in The Dalles, Oregon, on the banks of the Columbia River. The site,
also referred to by the media as Project 02, was chosen due to the availability of
inexpensive hydroelectric power and a large surplus of fiber optic cable, left over from
the dot com boom of the late 1990s. The computing center is estimated to be as large as
two football fields, and it has created hundreds of construction jobs, causing local real
estate prices to increase 40%. Upon completion, the center is expected to create 60 to 200
permanent jobs in the town of 12,000 people.[69]

Google is also making steps to ensure that their operations are environmentally sound. In
October 2006, the company announced plans to install thousands of solar panels to
provide up to 1.6 megawatts of electricity, enough to satisfy approximately 30% of the
campus' energy needs.[70] The system will be the largest solar power system constructed
on a U.S. corporate campus and one of the largest on any corporate site in the world.[70] In
June 2007, Google announced that they plan to become carbon neutral by 2008, which
includes investing in energy efficiency, renewable energy sources, and purchasing carbon
offsets, such as investing in projects like capturing and burning methane from animal
waste at Mexican and Brazilian farms.

"Twenty percent" time

All Google engineers are encouraged to spend 20% of their work time (one day per
week) on projects that interest them. Some of Google's newer services, such as Gmail,
Google News, Orkut, and AdSense originated from these independent endeavors.[71] In a
talk at Stanford University, Marissa Mayer, Google's Vice President of Search Products
and User Experience, stated that her analysis showed that half of the new product
launches originated from the 20% time.[72]

Easter eggs and April Fool's Day jokes

Main article: Google's hoaxes

Google has a tradition of creating April Fool's Day jokes — such as Google MentalPlex,
which allegedly featured the use of mental power to search the web.[73] In 2002, they
claimed that pigeons were the secret behind their growing search engine.[74] In 2004, they
featured Google Lunar (which claimed to feature jobs on the moon),[75] and in 2005, a
fictitious brain-boosting drink, termed Google Gulp was announced.[76] In 2006, they
came up with Google Romance, a hypothetical online dating service.[77] In 2007, Google
announced two joke products. The first was a free wireless Internet service called TiSP
(Toilet Internet Service Provider) [78] in which one obtained a connection by flushing one
end of a fiber-optic cable down their toilet and waiting only an hour for a "Plumbing
Hardware Dispatcher (PHD)" to connect it to the Internet.[78] Additionally, Google's
Gmail page displayed an announcement for Gmail Paper, which allows users of their free
email service to have email messages printed and shipped to a snail mail address.[79]

Some thought the announcement of Gmail in 2004 around April Fool's Day (as well as
the doubling of Gmail's storage space to two gigabytes in 2005) was a joke, although
both of these turned out to be genuine announcements. In 2005, a comedic graph
depicting Google's goal of "infinity plus one" GB of storage was featured on the Gmail
homepage.

Google's services contain a number of Easter eggs; for instance, the Language Tools page
offers the search interface in the Swedish Chef's "Bork bork bork," Pig Latin, ”Hacker”
(actually leetspeak), Elmer Fudd, and Klingon.[80] In addition, the search engine calculator
provides the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything from Douglas Adams' The
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.[81] As Google's search box can be used as a unit
converter (as well as a calculator), some non-standard units are built in, such as the
Smoot. Google also routinely modifies its logo in accordance with various holidays or
special events throughout the year, such as Christmas, Mother's Day, or various birthdays
of notable individuals.[82]

IPO and culture

Many people speculated that Google's IPO would inevitably lead to changes in the
company's culture,[83] because of shareholder pressure for employee benefit reductions
and short-term advances, or because a large number of the company's employees would
suddenly become millionaires on paper. In a report given to potential investors, co-
founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page promised that the IPO would not change the
company's culture.[84] Later Mr. Page said, "We think a lot about how to maintain our
culture and the fun elements. We spent a lot of time getting our offices right. We think it's
important to have a high density of people. People are packed together everywhere. We
all share offices. We like this set of buildings because it's more like a densely packed
university campus than a typical suburban office park."[85]

However, many analysts are finding that as Google grows, the company is becoming
more "corporate". In 2005, articles in The New York Times and other sources began
suggesting that Google had lost its anti-corporate, no evil philosophy.[86][87][88] In an effort
to maintain the company's unique culture, Google has designated a Chief Culture Officer
in 2006, who also serves as the Director of Human Resources. The purpose of the Chief
Culture Officer is to develop and maintain the culture and work on ways to keep true to
the core values that the company was founded on in the beginning — a flat organization,
a lack of hierarchy, a collaborative environment.[89]

Criticism
Main article: Criticism of Google
As it has grown, Google has found itself the focus of several controversies related to its
business practices and services. For example, Google Book Search's effort to digitize
millions of books and make the full text searchable has led to copyright disputes with the
Authors Guild. Google's cooperation with the governments of China, and to a lesser
extent France and Germany (regarding Holocaust denial) to filter search results in
accordance to regional laws and regulations has led to claims of censorship. Google's
persistent cookie and other information collection practices have led to concerns over
user privacy. A number of Indian state governments have raised concerns about the
security risks posed by geographic details provided by Google Earth's satellite imaging.
[90]
Google has also been criticized by advertisers regarding its inability to combat click
fraud, when a person or automated script is used to generate a charge on an advertisement
without really having an interest in the product. Industry reports in 2006 claim that
approximately 14 to 20 percent of clicks were in fact fraudulent or invalid.[91]

As of December 11, 2007, Google, like the Microsoft search engine, stores "personal
information for 18 months" and by comparison, Yahoo! and AOL (Time Warner) "retain
search requests for 13 months".[92]

Google is a search engine owned by Google, Inc. The largest search engine on the web,
Google indexes a portion of the total amount of webpages on the web. Google receives
several hundred million queries each day through its various services
PageRank
Main article: PageRank
Google.com uses a patented algorithm called PageRank to rank web pages that match a
given search string. The PageRank algorithm computes a recursive score for web pages,
based on the weighted sum of the PageRanks of the pages linking to them. The PageRank
derives from human-generalinks, and correlates well with human concepts of importance.
Such concepts and literia are part of the patented information that is not fully disclosed to
users. The exact percentage of the total of web pages that Google indexes is not known as
it is very hard to actually calculate it. Previous keyword-based methods of ranking search
results, used by many search engines that were once more popular than Google, would
rank pages by how often the search terms occurred in the page, or how strongly
associated the search terms were within each resulting page. In addition to PageRank,
Google also uses other secret criteria for determining the ranking of pages on result lists.
[edit] Search results
Google not only indexes and caches (X)HTML files but also 13 other file types, which
include PDF, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, Flash SWF, plain text files, among
others.[2] Except in the case of text and SWF files, the cached version is a conversion to
(X)HTML, allowing those without the corresponding viewer application to read the file.
Users can customize the search engine somewhat. They can set a default language, use
"SafeSearch" filtering technology (which is on 'moderate' setting by default), and set the
number of results shown on each page. Google has been criticized for placing long-term
cookies on users' machines to store these preferences, a tactic which also enables them to
track a user's search terms over time. It retains data for more than a year. [1] For any
query (of which only the 32 first keywords are taken into account), up to the first 1000
results can be shown with a maximum of 100 displayed per page.
[edit] Non-Web sources of data
Despite its immense index, there is also a considerable amount of data in databases,
which are accessible from websites by means of queries, but not by links. This so-called
deep web is minimally covered by Google and contains, for example, catalogs of
libraries, official legislative documents of governments, phone books, and more.
[edit] Google optimization
Since Google is the most popular search engine, many webmasters have become eager to
influence their website's Google rankings. An industry of consultants has arisen to help
websites raise their rankings on Google and on other search engines. This field, called
search engine optimization, attempts to discern patterns in search engine listings, and
then develop a methodology for improving rankings.
As Google's algorithms and results have gained the trust of web users, commercial
websites will profit from subverting these results by artificially inflating their rankings.
Some search engine optimization firms have attempted to inflate specific Google
rankings by various artifices, and thereby draw more searchers to their client's sites. One
of Google's main challenges has been to weaken some of these attempts by reducing the
ranking of sites known to use them.
Search engine optimization encompasses both "on page" factors (like body copy, title
tags, H1 heading tags and image alt attributes) and "Off Page Optimisation" factors (like
anchor text and PageRank). The general idea is to affect Google's relevance algorithm by
incorporating the keywords being targeted in various places "on page", in particular the
title tag and the body copy (note: the higher up in the page, the better its keyword
prominence and thus the ranking). Too many occurrences of the keyword, however,
cause the page to look suspect to Google's spam checking algorithms.
One "Off Page Optimisation" technique that works particularly well is Google Adwords
in which websites link to another site using a particular phrase in the anchor text, in order
to give the site a high ranking when the word is searched for.[citation needed]
The Google webmaster guidelines were published for website owners who would like to
raise their rankings when using legitimate optimization consultants.[3]
[edit] Uses of Google
A corollary use of Google - and other Internet search engines - is that it can help
translators to determine the most common way of expressing ideas in the English
language (and other languages). This is generally done by doing a 'count' of different
variants, thereby establishing which expression is more common. While this approach
requires careful judgment, it does improve the ability of non-native translators to use
more idiomatically correct English expressions.
[edit] Google dance
Google dance refers to the period of time when Google indices are tuned. This will often
cause both a fluctuation in index size as well a significant change in a web site's search
result position.
[edit] Googlability
Googlability is the degree to which an individual index can be referenced.
[edit] Search engine features
Besides the main search engine feature of searching for text, the search engine can be
used as a calculator, currency converter, dictionary and many other useful tools. The
largest number the Google calculator can compute (based on studies conducted at the
University of Bath in January 2008) is 1.07257416E308.
Early history
Google began in January 1996 as a research project by Larry Page, a Ph.D. student at
Stanford.[1] In search for a dissertation theme, Page decided to explore the mathematical
properties of the World Wide Web, understanding its link structure as a huge graph.[2]
His supervisor Terry Winograd agreed and Page focused on the problem of finding out
which web pages link to a given page, considering the number and nature of such
backlinks to be valuable information about that page (with the role of citations in
academic publishing in mind).[2] In his research project, nicknamed "BackRub", he was
soon joined by Sergey Brin, a fellow Stanford Ph.D. student and close friend, whom he
had first met in the summer of 1995 in a group of potential new students which Brin had
volunteered to show around the campus.[2] Page's web crawler began exploring the web
in March 1996, setting out from Page's own Stanford home page as its only starting point.
[2] To convert the backlink data that it gathered into a measure of importance for a given
web page, Brin and Page developed the PageRank algorithm.[2] Analyzing BackRub's
output - which, for a given URL, consisted of a list of backlinks ranked by importance - it
occurred to them that a search engine based on PageRank would produce better results
than existing techniques (existing search engines at the time essentially ranked results
according to how many times the search term appeared on a page).[2][3] A small search
engine called RankDex was already exploring a similar strategy.[4]
Convinced that the pages with the most links to them from other highly relevant Web
pages must be the most relevant pages associated with the search, Page and Brin tested
their thesis as part of their studies, and laid the foundation for their search engine.
Originally the search engine used the Stanford website with the domain
google.stanford.edu. The domain google.com was registered on September 15, 1997.
They formally incorporated their company, Google Inc., on September 7, 1998 at a
friend's garage in Menlo Park, California.
The name "Google" originated from a misspelling of "googol,"[5][6] which refers to the
number represented by a 1 followed by one-hundred zeros. Having found its way
increasingly into everyday language, the verb, "google," was added to the Merriam
Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary in 2006, meaning, "to
use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet."[7][8]
By the end of 1998, Google had an index of about 60 million pages.[9] The home page
was still marked "alpha test", but an article in Salon.com already argued that Google's
search results were better than those of competitors like Hotbot or Excite.com, and
praised it for being more technologically innovative than the overloaded portal sites (like
Yahoo!, Excite.com, Lycos, Netscape's Netcenter, AOL.com, Go.com and MSN.com)
which at that time, during the growing dot-com bubble, were seen as "the future of the
Web", especially by stock market investors.[9]
In March 1999, the company moved into offices at 165 University Avenue in Palo Alto,
home to several other noted Silicon Valley technology startups.[10] After quickly
outgrowing two other sites, the company leased a complex of buildings in Mountain
View at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway from Silicon Graphics (SGI) in 1999.[11] The
company has remained at this location ever since, and the complex has since become
known as the Googleplex (a play on the word googolplex, a 1 followed by a googol of
zeros). In 2006, Google bought the property from SGI for $319 million.[12]
The Google search engine attracted a loyal following among the growing number of
Internet users, who liked its simple design.[13] In 2000, Google began selling
advertisements associated with search keywords.[1] The ads were text-based to maintain
an uncluttered page design and to maximize page loading speed.[1] Keywords were sold
based on a combination of price bid and clickthroughs, with bidding starting at $.05 per
click.[1] This model of selling keyword advertising was pioneered by Goto.com (later
renamed Overture Services, before being acquired by Yahoo! and rebranded as Yahoo!
Search Marketing).[14][15][16] While many of its dot-com rivals failed in the new
Internet marketplace, Google quietly rose in stature while generating revenue.[1]
A patent describing part of Google's ranking mechanism (PageRank) was granted on
September 4, 2001.[17] The patent was officially assigned to Stanford University and
lists Lawrence Page as the inventor.
Google's declared code of conduct is "Don't be evil", a phrase which they went so far as
to include in their prospectus (aka "red herring" or "S-1") for their IPO, noting, "We
believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served - as shareholders and in all
other ways - by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some
short term gains."
The Google site often includes humorous features such as cartoon modifications of the
Google logo to recognize special occasions and anniversaries.[18] Known as "Google
Doodles", most have been drawn by Google's international webmaster, Dennis Hwang.
[19] Not only may decorative drawings be attached to the logo, but the font design may
also mimic a fictional or humorous language such as Star Trek Klingon and Leet.[20]
The logo is also notorious among web users for April Fool's Day tie-ins and jokes about
the company.
[edit] Financing and initial public offering
The first funding for Google as a company was secured in the form of a $100,000USD
contribution from Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, given to a
corporation which did not yet exist.[21] Around six months later, a much larger round of
funding was announced, with the major investors being rival venture capital firms
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital.[21]
In October 2003, while discussing a possible initial public offering of shares (IPO),
Microsoft approached the company about a possible partnership or merger.[citation
needed] However, no such deal ever materialized. In January 2004, Google announced
the hiring of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group to arrange an IPO. The IPO was
projected to raise as much as $4 billion.
On April 29, 2004, Google made an S-1 form SEC filing for an IPO to raise as much as
$2,718,281,828. This alludes to Google's corporate culture with a touch of mathematical
humor as e ? 2.718281828. April 29 was also the 120th day of 2004, and according to
section 12(g) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, "a company must file financial and
other information with the SEC 120 days after the close of the year in which the company
reaches $10 million in assets and/or 500 shareholders, including people with stock
options.[22] Google has stated in its annual filing for 2004 that every one of its 3,021
employees, "except temporary employees and contractors, are also equity holders, with
significant collective employee ownership", so Google would have needed to make its
financial information public by filing them with the SEC regardless of whether or not
they intended to make a public offering. As Google stated in the filing, their, "growth has
reduced some of the advantages of private ownership. By law, certain private companies
must report as if they were public companies. The deadline imposed by this requirement
accelerated our decision." The SEC filing revealed that Google turned a profit every year
since 2001 and earned a profit of $105.6 million on revenues of $961.8 million during
2003.
In May 2004, Google officially cut Goldman Sachs from the IPO, leaving Morgan
Stanley and Credit Suisse First Boston as the joint underwriters. They chose the
unconventional way of allocating the initial offering through an auction (specifically, a
"Dutch auction"), so that "anyone" would be able to participate in the offering. The
smallest required account balances at most authorized online brokers that are allowed to
participate in an IPO, however, are around $100,000. In the run-up to the IPO the
company was forced to slash the price and size of the offering, but the process did not run
into any technical difficulties or result in any significant legal challenges. The initial
offering of shares was sold for $85 a piece. The public valued it at $100.34 at the close of
the first day of trading, which saw 22,351,900 shares change hands.
Google's initial public offering took place on August 19, 2004. A total of 19,605,052
shares were offered at a price of $85 per share.[23] Of that, 14,142,135 (another
mathematical reference as ?2 ? 1.4142135) were floated by Google and 5,462,917 by
selling stockholders. The sale raised US$1.67 billion, and gave Google a market
capitalization of more than $23 billion.[24] The vast majority of Google's 271 million
shares remained under Google's control. Many of Google's employees became instant
paper millionaires. Yahoo!, a competitor of Google, also benefited from the IPO because
it owns 2.7 million shares of Google.[25]
The company is listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the ticker symbol GOOG.
[edit] Growth
In February 2003, Google acquired Pyra Labs, owner of Blogger, a pioneering and
leading web log hosting website. Some analysts considered the acquisition inconsistent
with Google's business model. However, the acquisition secured the company's
competitive ability to use information gleaned from blog postings to improve the speed
and relevance of articles contained in a companion product to the search engine, Google
News.
At its peak in early 2004, Google handled upwards of 84.7 percent of all search requests
on the World Wide Web through its website and through its partnerships with other
Internet clients like Yahoo!, AOL, and CNN. In February 2004, Yahoo! dropped its
partnership with Google, providing an independent search engine of its own. This cost
Google some market share, yet Yahoo!'s move highlighted Google's own distinctiveness,
and today the verb "to google" has entered a number of languages (first as a slang verb
and now as a standard word), meaning, "to perform a web search" (a possible indication
of "Google" becoming a genericized trademark).
Analysts speculate that Google's response to its separation from Yahoo! will be to
continue to make technical and visual enhancements to personalized searches, using the
personal data that is gathering from orkut, Gmail, and Google Product Search to produce
unique results based on the user. Frequently, new Google enhancements or products
appear in its inventory. Google Labs, the experimental section of Google.com, helps
Google maximize its relationships with its users by including them in the beta
development, design and testing stages of new products and enhancements of already
existing ones.[26]
After the IPO, Google's stock market capitalization rose greatly and the stock price more
than quadrupled. On August 19, 2004 the number of shares outstanding was 172.85
million while the "free float" was 19.60 million (which makes 89% held by insiders). In
January 2005 the number of shares outstanding was up 100 million to 273.42 million,
53% of that was held by insiders, which made the float 127.70 million (up 110 million
shares from the first trading day). The two founders are said to hold almost 30% of the
outstanding shares. The actual voting power of the insiders is much higher, however, as
Google has a dual class stock structure in which each Class B share gets ten votes
compared to each Class A share getting one. Page says in the prospectus that Google has,
"a dual class structure that is biased toward stability and independence and that requires
investors to bet on the team, especially Sergey and me." The company has not reported
any treasury stock holdings as of the Q3 2004 report.
On June 1, 2005, Google shares gained nearly four percent after Credit Suisse First
Boston raised its price target on the stock to $350. On that same day, rumors circulated in
the financial community that Google would soon be included in the S&P 500.[27] When
companies are first listed on the S&P 500 they typically experience a bump in share price
due to the rapid accumulation of the stock within index funds that track the S&P 500. The
rumors, however, were premature and Google was not added to the S&P 500 until 2006.
Nevertheless, on June 7, 2005, Google was valued at nearly $52 billion, making it one of
the world's biggest media companies by stock market value.
On August 18, 2005 (one year after the initial IPO), Google announced that it would sell
14,159,265 (another mathematical reference as ? ? 3.14159265) more shares of its stock
to raise money. The move would double Google's cash stockpile to $7 billion. Google
said it would use the money for "acquisitions of complementary businesses, technologies
or other assets".[28]
On September 28, 2005, Google announced a long-term research partnership with NASA
which would involve Google building a 1-million square foot R&D center at NASA's
Ames Research Center, and on December 31, 2005 Time Warner's AOL unit and Google
unveiled an expanded partnership-see Partnerships below.
Additionally, Google has also recently formed a partnership with Sun Microsystems to
help share and distribute each other's technologies. As part of the partnership Google will
hire employees to help in the open source office program OpenOffice.org.[29]
With Google's increased size comes more competition from large mainstream technology
companies. One such example is the rivalry between Microsoft and Google.[30]
Microsoft has been touting its MSN Search engine to counter Google's competitive
position. Furthermore, the two companies are increasingly offering overlapping services,
such as webmail (Gmail vs. Hotmail), search (both online and local desktop searching),
and other applications (for example, Microsoft's Windows Live Local competes with
Google Earth). Some have even suggested that in addition to an Internet Explorer
replacement Google is designing its own Linux-based operating system called Google OS
to directly compete with Microsoft Windows. There are also rumors of a Google web
browser, fueled much by the fact that Google is the owner of the domain name
"gbrowser.com". This corporate feud is most directly expressed in hiring offers and
defections. Many Microsoft employees who worked on Internet Explorer have left to
work for Google. This feud boiled over into the courts when Kai-Fu Lee, a former vice-
president of Microsoft, quit Microsoft to work for Google. Microsoft sued to stop his
move by citing Lee's non-compete contract (he had access to much sensitive information
regarding Microsoft's plans in China).
Google and Microsoft reached a settlement out of court on 22 December 2005, the terms
of which are confidential.[31]
Click fraud has also become a growing problem for Google's business strategy. Google's
CFO George Reyes said in a December 2004 investor conference that "something has to
be done about this really, really quickly, because I think, potentially, it threatens our
business model."[32] Some have suggested that Google is not doing enough to combat
click fraud. Jessie Stricchiola, president of Alchemist Media, called Google, "the most
stubborn and the least willing to cooperate with advertisers", when it comes to click
fraud.
While the company's primary market is in the web content arena, Google has also
recently began to experiment with other markets, such as radio and print publications. On
January 17, 2006, Google announced that it had purchased the radio advertising company
dMarc, which provides an automated system that allows companies to advertise on the
radio.[33] This will allow Google to combine two advertising media-the Internet and
radio-with Google's ability to laser-focus on the tastes of consumers. Google has also
begun an experiment in selling advertisements from its advertisers in offline newspapers
and magazines, with select advertisements in the Chicago Sun-Times.[34] They have
been filling unsold space in the newspaper that would have normally been used for in-
house advertisements.
During the third quarter 2005 Google Conference Call, Eric Schmidt said, "We don't do
the same thing as everyone else does. And so if you try to predict our product strategy by
simply saying well so and so has this and Google will do the same thing, it's almost
always the wrong answer. We look at markets as they exist and we assume they are pretty
well served by their existing players. We try to see new problems and new markets using
the technology that others use and we build."
After months of speculation, Google was added to the Standard & Poor's 500 index (S&P
500) on March 31, 2006.[35] Google replaced Burlington Resources, a major oil
producer based in Houston that had been acquired by ConocoPhillips.[36]. The day after
the announcement Google's share price rose by 7%[37].
Over the course of the past decade, Google has become quite well known for its corporate
culture and innovative, clean products, and has had a major impact on online culture. In
July 2006, the verb, "to google", was officially added to both the Merriam Webster
Collegiate Dictionary as well as the Oxford English Dictionary, meaning, "to use the
Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet."[38][39]
[edit] Philanthropy
In 2004, Google formed a non-profit philanthropic wing, Google.org, giving it a starting
fund of $1 billion.[40] The express mission of the organization is to help with the issues
of climate change (see also global warming), global public health, and global poverty.
Among its first projects is to develop a viable plug-in hybrid electric vehicle that can
attain 100 mpg. The current director is Dr. Larry Brilliant.[41]
[edit] Acquisitions
Since 2001, Google has acquired several small start-up companies, often consisting of
innovative teams and products. One of the earlier companies that Google bought was
Pyra Labs. They were the creators of Blogger, a weblog publishing platform, first
launched in 1999. This acquisition led to many premium features becoming free. Pyra
Labs was originally formed by Evan Williams, yet he left Google in 2004. In early 2006,
Google acquired Upstartle, a company responsible for the online collaborative word
processor, Writely. The technology in this product was combined with Google
Spreadsheets to become Google Docs & Spreadsheets.
On October 9, 2006, Google announced that it would buy the popular online video site
YouTube for $1.65 billion.[42] The brand, YouTube, will continue to exist, and will not
merge with Google Video. Meanwhile, Google Video signed an agreement with Sony
BMG Music Entertainment and the Warner Music Group, for both companies to deliver
music videos to the site.[43] The deal was finalized by November 13.[44]
On October 31, 2006, Google announced that it had purchased JotSpot, a company that
helped pioneer the market for collaborative, web-based business software to bolster its
position in the online document arena. [45]
On March 17, 2007, Google announced its acquisition of two more companies. The first
is Gapminder's Trendalyzer software, a company that specializes in developing
information technology for provision of free statistics in new visual and animated
ways[46] On the same day, Google also announced its acquisition of Adscape Media, a
small in-game advertising company based in San Francisco, California.[47]
Google also acquired PeakStream Technologies.
See also: List of Google acquisitions
[edit] Partnerships
Google has worked with several corporations, in order to improve production and
services.
On September 28, 2005, Google announced a long-term research partnership with NASA
which would involve Google building a 1-million square foot R&D center at NASA's
Ames Research Center. NASA and Google are planning to work together on a variety of
areas, including large-scale data management, massively distributed computing, bio-info-
nano convergence, and encouragement of the entrepreneurial space industry. The new
building would also include labs, offices, and housing for Google engineers.[48] In
October 2006, Google formed a partnership with Sun Microsystems to help share and
distribute each other's technologies. As part of the partnership Google will hire
employees to help the open source office program OpenOffice.org.[49]
Time Warner's AOL unit and Google unveiled an expanded partnership on December 21,
2005, including an enhanced global advertising partnership and a $1 billion investment
by Google for a 5% stake in AOL.[50] As part of the collaboration, Google plans to work
with AOL on video search and offer AOL's premium-video service within Google Video.
This did not allow users of Google Video to search for AOL's premium-video services.
Display advertising throughout the Google network will also increase.
In August 2003, Google signed a $900 million offer with News Corp.'s Fox Interactive
Media unit to provide search and advertising on MySpace and other News Corp. websites
including IGN, AmericanIdol.com, Fox.com, and Rotten Tomatoes, although Fox Sports
is not included as a deal already exists between News Corp. and MSN.[51] [52]
On 6 December 2006, British Sky Broadcasting released details of a Sky and Google
alliance.[53] This includes a feature where Gmail will link with Sky and host a mail
service for Sky, incorporating the email domain "@sky.com".
[edit] New mobile top-level domain
In coordination with several other major corporations, including Microsoft, Nokia,
Samsung, and Ericsson, Google provided financial support in the launch of the .mobi top
level domain created specifically for the mobile internet, stating that it is supporting the
new domain extension to help set the standards that will define the future of mobile
content and improve the experience of Google users.[54] In early 2006, Google launched,
Google.mobi, a mobile search portal offering several Google mobile products, including
stripped-down versions of its applications and services for mobile users.[55] On
September 17, 2007, Google launched, "Adsense for Mobile", a service to its publishing
partners providing the ability to monetize their mobile websites through the targeted
placement of mobile text ads.[56] Also in September, Google acquired the mobile social
networking site, Zingku.mobi, to "provide people worldwide with direct access to Google
applications, and ultimately the information they want and need, right from their mobile
devices."[57]
[edit] Legal battles
[edit] Gonzalez v. Google
On Wednesday, January 18, 2006, the U.S. Justice Department filed a motion to compel
in United States district court in San Jose seeking a court order that would compel search
engine company Google Inc. to turn over, "a multi-stage random sample of one million
URL's", from Google's database, and a computer file with, "the text of each search string
entered onto Google's search engine over a one-week period (absent any information
identifying the person who entered such query)."[58] Google maintains that their policy
has always been to assure its users privacy and anonymity, and challenged the subpoena.
On March 18, 2006, a federal judge ruled that while Google must surrender 50,000
random URLs, the Department of Justice did not meet the necessary burden to force
Google to disclose any search terms entered by its users.
Google Web Search Features
In addition to providing easy access to billions of web pages, Google has many special
features to help you to find exactly what you're looking for. Click the title of a specific
feature to learn more about it.
o Book Search
Use Google to search the full text of books.
o Cached Links
View a snapshot of each page as it looked when we indexed it.
o Calculator
Use Google to evaluate mathematical expressions.
o Currency Conversion
Easily perform any currency conversion.
o Definitions
Use Google to get glossary definitions gathered from various online sources.
o File Types
Search for non-HTML file formats including PDF documents and others.
o Groups
See relevant postings from Google Groups in your regular web search results.
o I'm Feeling Lucky
Bypass our results and go to the first web page returned for your query.
o Images
See relevant images in your regular web search results.
o Local Search
Search for local businesses and services in the U.S., the U.K., and Canada.
 o Movies
Use Google to find reviews and showtimes for movies playing near you.
o Music Search
Use Google to get quick access to a wide range of music information.
o News Headlines
Enhances your search results with the latest related news stories.
o PhoneBook
Look up U.S. street address and phone number information.
o Product Search
To find a product for sale online, use Google Product Search.
o Q&A
Use Google to get quick answers to straightforward questions.
o Refine Your Search - New! Add instant info and topic-specific links to your
search in order to focus and improve your results.
o Results Prefetching
Makes searching in Firefox faster.
o Search By Number
Use Google to access package tracking information, US patents, and a variety of online
databases.
o Similar Pages
Display pages that are related to a particular result.
o Site Search
Restrict your search to a specific site.
o Spell Checker
Offers alternative spelling for queries.
o Stock and Fund Quotes
Use Google to get up-to-date stock and mutual fund quotes and information.
o Street Maps
Use Google to find U.S. street maps.
o Travel Information
Check the status of an airline flight in the U.S. or view airport delays and weather
conditions.
o Weather
Check the current weather conditions and forecast for any location in the U.S.
o Web Page Translation
Provides you access to web pages in other languages.
o Who Links To You?
Find pages that point to a specific URL.

Book Search
Google is helping to get the world's information online by bringing books themselves
online. Whenever books in our Google Book Search index contain content that matches
your search terms, you'll see links to those books under Book Results at the top of your
search results page. Click on any book title and you'll see the page in that book which
contains your search terms, as well as other information about the title. Click one of the
links under "Buy this Book" and you'll go straight to a bookstore selling that book online.
example:

Cached Links
Google takes a snapshot of each page examined as it crawls the web and caches these as a
back-up in case the original page is unavailable. If you click on the "Cached" link, you
will see the web page as it looked when we indexed it. The cached content is the content
Google uses to judge whether this page is a relevant match for your query.
When the cached page is displayed, it will have a header at the top which serves as a
reminder that this is not necessarily the most recent version of the page. Terms that match
your query are highlighted on the cached version to make it easier for you to see why
your page is relevant.
The "Cached" link will be missing for sites that have not been indexed, as well as for
sites whose owners have requested we not cache their content.
Google
... Advertise with Us - Business Solutions - Services & Tools - Jobs,
Press, & Help ©2004 Google - Searching 4,285,199,774 web pages.
www.google.com/ - 3k - Nov 26, 2004 - " Cached " - Similar pages

Calculator

To use Google's built-in calculator function, simply enter the calculation you'd like done
into the search box and hit the Enter key or click on the Google Search button. The
calculator can solve math problems involving basic arithmetic, more complicated math,
units of measure and conversions, and physical constants. Try one of the sample
expressions below, or refer to our complete instructions for help in building your own.

These sample queries demonstrate the utility and power of this new feature:
" 5+2*2
" 2^20
" sqrt(-4)
" half a cup in teaspoons
" 160 pounds * 4000 feet in Calories
example:

Currency Conversion
To use our built-in currency converter, simply enter the conversion you'd like done into
the Google search box and hit "Enter" or click the Google Search button
Here are some sample queries:
" 3.5 USD in GBP
" currency of Brazil in Malaysian money
" 5 British pounds in South Korean money
" 2.2 USD per gallon in INR per litre
example:

Definitions
To see a definition for a word or phrase, simply type the word "define," then a space, and
then the word(s) you want defined. If Google has seen a definition for the word or phrase
on the Web, it will retrieve that information and display it at the top of your search
results.
example:

You can also get a list of definitions by including the special operator "define:" with no
space between it and the term you want defined. For example, the search [define:World
Wide Web] will show you a list of definitions for "World Wide Web" gathered from
various online sources.

File Types
Google has expanded the number of non-HTML file types searched to 12 file formats. In
addition to PDF documents, Google now searches Microsoft Office, PostScript, Corel
WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3, and others. The new file types will simply appear in Google
search results whenever they are relevant to the user query.
Google also offers the user the ability to "View as HTML", allowing users to examine the
contents of these file formats even if the corresponding application is not installed. The
"View as HTML" option also allows users to avoid viruses which are sometimes carried
in certain file formats.
Overall, the additional file types provide Google users a wider view of the content
available on the World Wide Web. And Google has plans to keep expanding the range of
file types available over time.
For more information about this feature, please read the file type FAQ.
" [PDF] " The Anatomy of a Search Engine
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - " View as HTML "
... Second, Google keeps track of some visual presentation details such as font ... phone
numbers, product numbers), type or format (text, HTML, PDF, images, sounds ...
www-db.stanford.edu/pub/papers/google.pdf - Similar pages

If you prefer to see a particular set of results with a specific file type (for example, PDF
links), simply type filetype:[extension] (for example, filetype:pdf) within the search box
along with your search term(s).
example:

Product Search

If you search for products using Google, you may see relevant product search information
and links displayed at the top of your search results. These product search results are
linked to the sites of merchants who participate in Product Search, Google's product
search service. These results are not advertisements, as participation in Product Search is
completely free to merchants.

example:

Groups

When you search on Google, sometimes you'll see results from Google Groups at the
bottom of your search results page. These are messages that users have posted to a
discussion group about a topic related to your search. Clicking on one of these results will
bring you to the full text of the message on the Google Groups site.

example:
I'm Feeling Lucky
The "I'm Feeling Lucky™" button takes you directly to the first web page Google
returned for your query. You will not see the other search results at all. An "I'm Feeling
Lucky" search means you spend less time searching for web pages and more time looking
at them.
For example, to find the homepage for Stanford University, simply enter Stanford into
the search field and click on the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button. Google takes you directly to
"www.stanford.edu", the official homepage of Stanford University.
example:

Are you feeling lucky?

Images
You may occasionally see small images at the top of your Google search results. These
are images that we think are relevant to your search terms.

You can also find relevant images by doing a Google Image Search, or by adding words
like 'pics' or 'pictures' to your search terms when you do a regular web search.
example:

Local Search

Google enables you to search the entire web for just those stores and businesses in a
specific neighborhood. Include a city or zip code in your search and Google displays
relevant results from that region on a map with links to reviews, directions, and more
information at the top of your search results.

example:
Movies

To find reviews and showtimes for movies playing near you, type "movies", "showtimes"
or the name of a current film into the Google search box. If you've already saved your
location by using Google Local, the top search result will display showtimes for nearby
theaters for the movie you've chosen.

example:

To find theatres and showtimes near you for a currently playing movie, simply search for
the movie's name.
example:

Can't remember a movie title, or just looking for something new to see? You can use the
"movie:" operator to search for films related to a specific actor, director or plot detail.
example:

Want to read about the movies you find? Your search results for any film will include an
average rating out of 5 stars and several snippets from online reviews, along with links to
the reviews themselves. Click the "reviews" link near any title for a complete list of
online reviews of this film.

Music Search

Find information about artists, songs, albums and places to buy the music you are looking
for. If you enter the name of an artist popular in the U.S. into the search box, we will
display user reviews, song titles, stores to purchase the music and other useful
information related to that artist at the top of your search results.

example:

Pixies
Albums: Doolittle, Surfer Rosa, Pixies, and more...
Songs: Debaser, Wave of Mutilation, Silver, and more...
More music results for pixies

Click on the link to see more music information about that artist such as related albums,
songs, and more.

News Headlines

When searching on Google you may see links at the top of your results marked "News".
These links connect you to reports culled from numerous news services Google
continuously monitors. The links appear if the terms you enter are words currently in the
news and clicking on them will take you directly to the service supplying them.

example:

PhoneBook

Google has added the convenience of US street address and phone number lookup to the
information we provide through our search box. You'll see publicly listed phone numbers
and addresses at the top of results pages for searches that contain specific kinds of
keywords.
To find listings for a US residence, type any of the following combinations into the
Google search box:
" first name (or first initial), last name, city (state is optional)
" first name (or first initial), last name, state
" first name (or first initial), last name, area code
" first name (or first initial), last name, zip code
" phone number, including area code
" last name, city, state
" last name, zip code
To have your residential phone and address information removed from the Google
PhoneBook, click here.
Q&A

Want to know the population of Japan? What currency is used in Algeria? The birthplace
of Bono? Hit us with a fact-based question or query (like "population of Japan") by
typing it into the Google search box. We'll search the web and display the answer at the
top of your search results page. We also link to our source for this information so that you
can learn even more.

example:

Refine Your Search

For searches within certain topics, you'll notice links at the top of the search results page
that help you quickly narrow your search.

These links are labels that have been assigned to certain webpages. Organizations,
businesses, and individuals can label websites in the topics they know best. You can
subscribe to more of these providers by visiting the Google Co-op directory.
example:

example:

The Google Co-op directory also includes subscribed links, which provide instant
information in your search results - things like restaurant reservations, financial info, or
even celebrity gossip. Add these services to your Google search by subscribing to the
providers of your choice.

Results Prefetching
On some searches, Google automatically instructs your browser to start downloading the
top search result before you click on it. If you click on top result, the destination page
will load faster than before.
Google uses a special prefetching feature in Firefox and Mozilla web browsers to provide
this functionality, so results prefetching is not available in Internet Explorer or other web
browsers. You can disable prefetching in your web browser preferences, as described in
the Mozilla Prefetching FAQ. In Firefox, you can disable prefetching by doing the
following:
1. Type "about:config" the address bar.
2. Scroll down to the setting "network.prefetch-next" and set the value to "False".
With prefetching enabled, you may end up with cookies and web pages in your web
browser's cache from web sites that you did not click on since prefetching happens
automatically when you view Google search results pages. You can delete these files by
clearing your browser's cache and cookies.
If you run a web server, you can find webmaster-specific information about this feature
in our Webmaster FAQ.

Search By Number
Parcel tracking IDs, patents and other specialized numbers can be entered into Google's
search box for quick access to information about them. For example, typing a FedEx
tracking number will return the latest information on your package. Other special search
by number types include :
o UPS tracking numbers example search: "1Z9999W99999999999"
o FedEx tracking numbers example search: "999999999999"
o USPS tracking numbers example search: "9999 9999 9999 9999 9999 99"
o Vehicle ID (VIN) numbers example search: "AAAAA999A9AA99999"
o UPC codes example search: "073333531084"
o Telephone area codes example search: "650"
o Patent numbers example search: "patent 5123123"
Remember to put the word "patent" before your patent number.
example:

Are there other types of numbers you'd like Google to search? Please contact us.

Similar Pages
When you click on the "Similar Pages" link for a search result, Google automatically
scouts the web for pages that are related to this result.
The Similar Pages feature can be used for many purposes. If you like a particular site's
content, but wish it had more to say, Similar Pages can find sites with similar content
with which you may be unfamiliar. If you are looking for product information, Similar
Pages can find competitive information so you can make direct comparisons. If you are
interested in researching a particular field, Similar Pages can help you find a large
number of resources very quickly, without having to worry about selecting the right
keywords.
The more specialized a page is, the fewer results Google will be able to find for you. For
example, Similar Pages may not be able to find related pages for your personal home
page if it does not have enough information to authoritatively associate other pages with
yours. Also, if companies use multiple URLs for their pages (such as company.com and
www.company.com), Similar Pages may have little information on one URL, but lots on
the other. In general, however, Similar Pages works well for the majority of web pages.
Google
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Site Search
The word "site" followed by a colon enables you to restrict your search to a specific site.
To do this, use the site:sampledomain.com syntax in the Google search box. For example,
to find admission information on Stanford's site, enter:
example:

Spell Checker
Google's spell checking software automatically looks at your query and checks to see if
you are using the most common version of a word's spelling. If it calculates that you're
likely to generate more relevant search results with an alternative spelling, it will ask
"Did you mean: (more common spelling)?". Clicking on the suggested spelling will
launch a Google search for that term. Because Google's spell check is based on
occurrences of all words on the Internet, it is able to suggest common spellings for proper
nouns (names and places) that might not appear in a standard spell check program or
dictionary.

Stock and Fund Quotes

To use Google to get stock and mutual fund quotes, just enter the symbol into the search
box.
example:
Click on the chart or Google Finance link to see more relevant information from Google
Finance. Alternatively, you can go directly to other financial information providers for
more information by clicking on the links provided. These financial information
providers are selected and ordered based on popularity determined by independent third
party audience measurement firms. In addition, we consider important quality factors
such as download speed, user interface and functionality. If you'd like to suggest a
provider we might include, please contact us.

Street Maps

To use Google to find street maps, enter a U.S. street address, including zip code or city/
state (e.g. 165 University Ave Palo Alto CA), in the Google search box. Often, the street
address and city name will be enough.
example:

When Google recognizes your query as a map request, we'll show you your address on a
Google map and enable you to obtain directions and store your default location.

Travel Information
To see delays and weather conditions at a particular airport, type the airport's three letter
code followed by the word "airport." For example, San Francisco International Airport
updates can be found by searching for "sfo airport."
example:

To check the status of a U.S. flight, type the name of the airline followed by the flight
number. For example, to see the status for United Airlines flight 134 search for "United
134."
example:

Weather
To see weather conditions and a four-day forecast for a particular U.S. or worldwide
location, type "weather," followed by the location. Usually a city name will be enough,
but you may also want to include a state or zipcode or the country for worldwide cities.
For example, to see Palo Alto weather, you could search for "weather palo alto, ca" or
"weather palo alto 94301".

If you like to see the weather of this location on your personalized Google homepage,
you can do this by clicking on the button 'Add to my Google homepage' in the upper right
corner.
example:

All weather conditions and forecasts are provided by Weather Underground, Inc.

Web Page Translation

Google breaks the language barrier with this translation feature. Using machine
translation technology, Google now gives you the ability to access web pages in
languages other than your own. Currently, Google offers the following translation pairs:
English to and from Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Korean, Japanese,
Spanish, and Portuguese; and German to and from French.
If your search results contain a page in one of these languages, and we support your
translation pair, you can translate that page into your language with a single click.
For more information about this feature, please read the translation FAQ.
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