The History of Google
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2017-05-06
·
1,059 words · ~5 min read
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Google's identity as a company has always been worth a sensible chuckle
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before being named after a misspelling of a really large number it was a
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research project called backrub and although it wasn't the first search
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engine by any means it worked in a fundamentally different way than most of
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the other options out there including backrubs entire lack of a friendly
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Butler that would fetch search results for you most early search engines gave
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you results based on how many times words you searched in a string appear on
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a page so if you typed lonus instead of articles about Linus tals Linus from
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peanuts or Linus Tech tips you might instead see some random fanfic with a
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main character named lonus along with some other guy named Luke or something H
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anyways backrub ranked search results based on how many times other Pages
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linked to them using a system called page rank the idea was that a page that
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had lots of other Pages linking to it was more important and more likely to be
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what people were searching for and although Google's current algorithm has
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grown to be much more comprehensive page
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rank back then was such an innovation that it gave Google a massive Edge over
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its competitors that spurred its rapid growth in the late 1990s and early 2000s
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forcing it to quickly move from its original homes of Stanford University
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servers and cliche incoming a garage in
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a Silicon Valley House Google's popularity was also boosted by its clean
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simple layout remember how cluttered and AD filled other web portals of the time
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were now don't get me wrong Google did sell ads but their unobtrusiveness did a
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great deal to keep them popular and they made lots of money by targeting the ads
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based on what users were actually searching something that took its
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competitors longer to catch up on back in 2002 Google started making its first
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real foras into products besides standard web search such as Google
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shopping and Google Books then a couple years later the now near ubiquitous
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Gmail showed up on April freaking Fool's
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Day of 2004 which led many people to believe that it was a joke at first I
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mean a gig of web storage for free back then that was crazy and since it was
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invite only to start accounts were highly coveted leading it to become
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hugely popular when it released to everyone so maybe it's no huge
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coincidence that Google went public later that year making some long
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googlers very wealthy shortly after Google's initial public offering they
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rolled out a lot of services that are now Google Staples Maps Earth Transit
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street view calendar and the everpresent g chat all hit the scene between 2005
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and 2007 with Google acquiring YouTube
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in 2006 and introducing their faster than a potato gun Google Chrome in 2008
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which is the world's most used browser today by a large margin even though it's
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become a a little more bloated since then Google's freely available Android
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OS launched in 2008 which now has Chrome built-in which has probably contributed
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largely to that previous statistic made Google a major player in the mobile
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market leading to the more recent dive
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into the world of hardware and I mean other than that like search Appliance
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thing for businesses that they rolled out back in 2001 I'm talking about the
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2009 release of the Chromebook a lowcost
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line of laptops built around the Chrome browser which you can learn more about
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up here that was followed by Nexus phones and tablets the next year 2009
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and 2010 also saw Google's search algorithm revamped to focus on adding
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real time and recent content meaning that Google could now be used not only
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as a repository of existing information but as a true source of current news
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very timely considering the explosive growth of devices with Google search
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functionality baked in allowing people to punch in a wider variety of queries
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even current weather and sports scores and still get relevant
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results so with their own software and Hardware now nearly everywhere at this
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point including their new pixel smartphones which you can learn more about up here Google is even dabbling in
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infrastructure projects like Google Fiber an internet service that's been
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rolled out in seven American Metro areas since 2013
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and with other ongoing Google projects like driverless cars and balloons that
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can provide internet access to underserved areas Google's reach has
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amazed some but also concerned others
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who worry they'll become the real world by and large and considering their
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absolute dominance of the search and data mining business their tax avoidance
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strategies that have been described as ethically questionable and their
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abandonment of the don't be evil as a corporate slogan who knows all I know is
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that I would definitely stick to duck ducko if you want to see how many other
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people think Larry pagee kind of looks like a bond villain for non-members of
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Dollar Shave Club if you join today you will get your first month of razors for
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free and if you continue on after that they will continue to deliver razors
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directly to your door in a timely manner membership means that you can shave with
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a fresh blade any time that you want you'll get a first class shave and use
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the executive blade without it actually hurting your wallet which is pretty cool
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and you can use it with Dr Carver's shave butter which goes on clear so you
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actually see where you're shaving if you care about your face not looking like a
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complete mess which is probably a good idea and they ship to the US Canada and
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Australia so head over to dollarshaveclub.com Linus and give them
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a try for free all right guys if you liked that video like it if you disliked it dislike it get subscribe check out
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Channel Super Fun they're pretty cool in the comments down below let me know what kind of stuff you want to see on Tech
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quickie in the future and I'm going to see you next time goodbye right