Google has become an integral part of the Internet. The simple idea of developing a machine that searches the World Wide Web has become one of the largest corporations in the world. Hardly anyone who is online today has never used Google or its products. Regardless of whether it’s videos on YouTube, an email address on Gmail or the Android system on a smartphone or tablet: Google is practically omnipresent in the digital world.
Google turns 25: from a search engine to one of the largest companies in the world
But the success story began with the core of the company: the search engine. In 1996, two computer science students at Stanford University, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, developed BackRub, the precursor to Google. The idea was simple: by entering a search term, you could search the Internet and organize its content. To this day, Google’s search mask has practically not changed: a lettering with your name and a line in which you enter the desired term – that’s all you need.
According to the statistics portal “GlobalStats,” three billion searches are carried out on Google today – every day. That means a market share of almost 92 percent. A market power that is often criticized. If you want to be visible on the Internet, you have to rely on Google. The group has turned it into a business model. For example, for a fee it is possible to place so-called “sponsored posts” and thus reach more people.
The algorithm, which is constantly being further developed by Google, is sometimes surprisingly accurate and seems to have an idea of what the user is currently looking for. But that was not always so. Older people will still remember results that they only found on the third or fourth page of the search engine. Today, everything after page one seems like the shadowy realm of the Internet.
For its 25th anniversary, the company has put together a ranking that shows which terms and topics were most frequently searched for in the last quarter century. Some search queries are not surprising. For example, the legendary cover of the “Beatles” album “Abbey Road” is the most searched for. New York City is the most popular travel destination and Pikachu is the most popular Pokémon.
On the other hand, the results shed light on real conflicts of belief: Spider Man is the most popular superhero, the most searched for classical composer is Ludwig van Beethoven and the most popular decade is the 1980s. In the photo gallery you will find a selection of Google highlights from the last 25 years.
Sources: Google, GlobalStats