Google Turns 25: Fascinating Facts About Everyone's Favourite Search Engine

When you have a query, what's the first thing that comes to your mind? If you've embraced the internet, your answer is most likely to be "let me Google it." 25 years ago today, Google was born. The staple search engine, Google, was started by Sergey Brin (who was a PhD student at Stanford University at that time) and Larry Page (who wanted to study at Stanford).

Google Search's index has expanded to include hundreds of billions of webpages, exceeding the size of more than 100,000,000 gigabytes. Once Google Search was in place, the company grew into the tech behemoth it has become today - with additional services like Gmail, the entire Android ecosystem, and Chrome browser now in the picture.

Google turns 25 this month ?
CEO @SundarPichai looks back on the big questions that led us to where we are today, and what the next 25 years could look like ¡ı https://t.co/gftKdUAE9x

¡ª Google (@Google) September 5, 2023

Here are a few thing you didn't know about Google.

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A typo that changed the internet

Initially, Google was named Backrub. Yikes! Imagine saying "Let me backrub this information really quick!" Not much later, the name was changed to Google... which was also accidental. The word Google is actually a typo of the word googol that refers to a mathematical concept "one with a hundred zeros" - part of the company's initial strategy to make information accessible to everyone.

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Also read: Google Is Officially Killing Gmail HTML View Next Year

Feeding humanity's thirst for questions

Everyday, around 8.5 billion searches are performed on Google's search engine, according to Internet Live Stats, 2022. In 2022, about 99,000 search queries were made each second. Bizarre, right? This is testimony to how much Google has become embedded into our lives. About 15% of all Google search queries are unique.

Also read: Google's Latest Video Takes A Dig At Apple's iMessage For Not Adopting RCS

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It all began in a garage

The fist Google office was situated in a garage in Menlo Park, California. This garage belonged to Google's 16th employee and the eventual CEO of YouTube, Susan Wojcicki.

Google becomes a verb

In 2006, the word Google became a verb, as recognised by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. The dictionary included the word "Google" with the meaning "to use the Google search engine to obtain information about (someone or something) on the World Wide Web."

Happy 25th birthday, Google! What do you think about Google's journey so far? Let us know in the comments below. For more in the world of technology and science, keep reading Indiatimes.com.