When was google founded

Google's Founding

Google was founded on September 4, 1998, by two Stanford University PhD students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The company started as a research project exploring how to improve search algorithms using link analysis. What began as a university project would eventually transform into the world's most dominant search engine and one of the most valuable companies on the planet.

The BackRub Project

Before becoming Google, the search engine was called BackRub, a name reflecting its ability to analyze backlinks to determine website importance. The BackRub crawler used Stanford's computer network to index and rank web pages based on link popularity. In 1997, Page and Brin registered the domain "google.com," and the following year they officially incorporated Google as a company with $100,000 in initial funding from Andy Bechtolsheim, Sun Microsystems' co-founder.

Early Growth and Development

Google quickly gained recognition among web users for its superior search results compared to competitors like AltaVista and Yahoo. The company's PageRank algorithm, which evaluated the importance of web pages based on incoming links, proved revolutionary. By 1999, Google was handling millions of searches per day. The company relocated from Stanford's campus to a garage in Menlo Park, California, and then to its first real office in Palo Alto.

IPO and Expansion

Google went public on August 19, 2004, with an initial stock price of $85 per share. The IPO raised $1.67 billion and made Page and Brin billionaires. Following the IPO, Google expanded rapidly through acquisitions and new product launches, including Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube (acquired in 2006), and Android (acquired in 2005). These investments established Google as a technology conglomerate.

Impact and Legacy

From its 1998 founding to today, Google has fundamentally changed how people access information online. The company's motto "Don't be evil" initially reflected its commitment to providing unbiased search results. Google's innovations in search technology, advertising, and cloud services have made it one of the most influential companies in the world, shaping the digital landscape for over two decades.