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Googleplex Headquarters, Mountain View, US by The Pancake of Heaven! –

20 Fun Facts about Google

Google is an American multinational technology company with an emphasis on consumer electronics, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, and search engine technology.

On September 4, 1998, while Larry Page and Sergey Brin were pursuing their PhDs at Stanford University in California, Google was officially launched. At the time it was known as Backrub. This was caused by the fact that the early versions of their search engines evaluated a website’s backlinks to gauge its significance.

The market domination, data collection, and technological advances in the artificial intelligence of Google have made it to be regarded as one of the most valuable brands in the world. Google underwent a reorganization in 2015 and became an Alphabet Inc. wholly owned subsidiary.

Google, Alphabet’s largest subsidiary, serves as a holding corporation for all of Alphabet’s Internet properties and interests. Alphabet, Google鈥檚 parent company, is considered one of the Big Five American information technology companies.

Now let鈥檚 look at 20 fun facts about Google.

1. Initially, Google Was Called BackRub

BackRub was the original name of Page and Brin鈥檚 entry into the realm of search engines. Not only is Backrub the name of your favorite massage technique but also the initial name of Google. They gave it this name since the program examined “backlinks” on the internet to determine the significance of a website and the websites it was linked to.

The name was assigned while Larry Page and Sergey Brin were brainstorming the research project鈥檚 name while studying at Stanford University. BackRub ran on Stanford’s servers until the available bandwidth was exhausted.

2. The Word “googol” Inspired Google’s Name

A view of the Google logo, from the patio area of Googleplex, between buildings 40 and 43 by Jijithecat –

In mathematics, a googol is 10 to the 100th power or 1 followed by 100 zeros. Google is a play on the word googol. The name was chosen to imply that the search engine was meant to provide large quantities of information.

According to rumors, Google is actually a misspelling of googol. This is partially accurate because when Sean Anderson, a fellow Stanford University student, checked to see if the domain for googol was available, he typed “Google.com” instead. The name pleased Page and he registered the domain name for Brin and himself.

3. In 2013, Google Was Down For Five Minutes

On 16th August 2013, between 23:52 and 23:57, Google went down. The blackout affected all of Google鈥檚 services.

GoSquared, a real-time tracking and web analytics company, claims that when Google went down for a short period of time, it resulted in a 40% decrease in global traffic. This just shows how important google is to our daily lives.

4. Founded By 2 Students

Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 2003 by Ehud Kenan –

Larry Page and Sergey Brin started Google in January 1996 as a research project. They were enrolled students at Stanford University in California. The project involved an unofficial third member, Scott Hassan.

Hassan was the leading programmer who authored much of the code for the initial Google search engine. He left before Google was officially founded as a company. Hassan established Willow Garage in 2006 after pursuing a career in robotics.

Page and Brin theorized PageRank. It is an algorithm that determines a website’s relevance by counting the number of pages and the importance of the pages that linked back to the original site.

5. Google Receives a 15% Daily Increase in New Searches

With billions of people in the universe, you expect billions of searches. Ideologically, you expect people to be searching same concepts over and over again. Unfortunately, this is not the case. About 15% of the Google searches made every day, are new and unique.

6. The Word 鈥淕oogle鈥� Can Be Used As A Verb

In June 2006, the word 鈥済oogle鈥� was officially added to the Oxford Dictionary and the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary in July 2006. This was due to Google鈥檚 online dominance and the fact that it had turned into an essential tool in our daily life.

The word 鈥済oogle鈥� means to search for information about (something or somebody) on the internet using the search engine google. Talk about monopoly in a market!

7. Nevada鈥檚 Yearly Burning Man Festival Was The First Featured Google Doodle

The Man burns at Burning Man 2014 Burning man by torroid –

A Google Doodle is a unique, momentary change to the Google logo that appears on the company’s homepages to honor special occasions, accomplishments, and notable historical figures.

The first Google Doodle celebrated the long-running annual Burning Man festival in Black Rock City, Nevada, in 1998. It was designed by co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin to notify users of their absence in case the servers crashed. Behind the second “o” of the Google logo, they placed the iconic Man.

8. Google’s First Office Was In A Garage

The garage where Google started at 232 Santa Margarita Avenue in Menlo Park, California by Jordiipa –

Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the co-founders of Google, opened an office in Susan Wojcicki’s parents’ garage in Menlo Park, California, in September 1998. The office was set up the same month the company was incorporated. Susan Wojcicki became Google鈥檚 first marketing manager.

9. Google Was Almost Sold to Yahoo

Headquarters of Yahoo! next to Mathilda Avenue in Sunnyvale, California, United States by Coolcaesar –

The year is 1997 and Yahoo is trying to acquire google. Google offered it to them for $ 2 million but they deem the price too hefty and do not accept the terms.

Fast forward to 2002 and this decision is beginning to look misguided. Yahoo comeback with an offer of $3 million but this time it’s Google who turns them down. I guess they had realized just how valuable a product they had in their hands.

10. The Google homepage is available in 133 languages

Google is a global product used by people from different walks of life around the world. To this end, Google has done its due diligence by availing itself to as many people as possible. This is by offering their search services in 133 different languages as of January 2023.

11. The 鈥業鈥檓 Feeling Lucky鈥� Was Removed for Being Costly

I’m Feeling Lucky tee shirt by Unknown Author – Wikimedia Commons

If you used Google from the 2000s to 2010s era, you鈥檙e definitely familiar with the mysterious and intriguing button. It sat next to the crucial Google Search button.

Many might not have given it much thought but to some, it was interesting and would even become a meme at some point. In 2010 however, the button was removed.

This was because it was found to be costing the company over $110 million annually. The button bypassed all advertisements when clicked and went straight to top searches. Guess it wasn鈥檛 so lucky after all!

12. Google Owns Several Domains That Are Misspellings Of Its Name

It is common for companies to have similar-sounding names, whether intentionally or accidentally. However, this is costly to some as it can cause confusion and reduce one company’s traffic on the internet increasing another鈥檚.

To this end, Google has made the effort to acquire several domains that have similar spellings. Examples include; Gooogle.com, Gogle.com, Googlr.com, etc.

13. A Google Mirror Site Exists 鈥� elgooG

Yes, it’s just what you read! This is a reversed version of Google that displays everything backward. As interesting as it sounds, one cannot help but ask why? Then again, why not?

It might seem pointless, but this site actually became helpful at some point. Google Mirror was crucial in getting over the Great Firewall of China’s restriction on Google.

14. There Are Reasons for How Simple the Homepage Looks

Google’s original homepage had a simple design because the company founders had little experience in HTML, the markup language used for designing web pages by Google –

Taking a look at Google鈥檚 home page, you鈥檒l notice how uncluttered it is compared to other website home pages. There are explanations for this. One is that the founders wanted a simple and quick interface as the homepage and created just that. The second reason is that the founders did not know how to utilize HTML code at the time.

15. Over 5,000 Doodles

In 1998, Google founders came up with the first doodle. It was a stick figure drawing placed behind the second 鈥榦鈥� in the word google. The doodle was to signify that they were 鈥榦ut of office鈥�. This is where doodles were born.

Since then, over 5,000 doodles have been designed and utilized appropriately on relevant events such as birthdays of icons and independence days.

 16. First Google Employee Worked There Until 2012

In 1998, Google founders hired Craig Silverstein. He was a fellow Ph.D. student with the two at Stanford. He was or is the company鈥檚 first employee.

As a technology director and mentor to engineers, Silverstein worked on a variety of initiatives. Silverstein left Google in 2012 and now serves as dean of infrastructure at Khan Academy.

17. The Founders Have Runways At Nasa

Private jet by Norbert from

As you can imagine or deduce, the founders of Google have amassed a great fortune over the years. This, therefore, affords them premium privileges some can only dream of.

This includes private jets and some other billionaire perks. One impressive thing however is that both founders have private runways at NASA. They are the only 2 people on the planet who can land on NASA land.

18. Foo.bar Is Used by Google to Hire

Google makes use of foo.bar to recruit and hire developers and programmers with super coding skills. This tool presents itself as a game to its users, asking them to solve coding challenges of growing difficulty.

They’ve tried a number of various recruitment strategies in the past and found that they just aren’t effective. When they emphasized exam results and GPAs as employment criteria, they referred to the process as pointless.

Due to their determination to abandon conventional hiring practices, they currently have 14% of their employees who never completed college.

19. New Employees at Google Are Called 鈥楴ooglers鈥�

photo of someone wearing a Google NOOGLER hat by Tduk Alex Lozupone –

Nooglers, short for “New Googlers,” is the term used to refer to new hires at Google. They can be quickly identified because of their colorful caps.

20. There Are Goats at Google HQ

goats by congerdesign from

Despite being one of the largest technology companies in the world, Google remains environmentally conscious. One of the many things they do is refuse to use power tools to trim and maintain the grass at Menlo Park.

Instead, there are goats that feed on said grass keeping the lawn down. The fact that Google employees like watching goats out of their office windows while working is another benefit of having them.