Did You Know A Spelling Error Led To Google Not Being Named 'Googol?'

This month marked the completion of 25 years since Google was born in the year 1998. But did you know that Google was earlier named Backrub, and even after that, it was almost renamed 'Googol?'

Why Google Was Originally Named Backrub

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Back in 1996, i.e. two years before Google even existed, its co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin were already making up nerdy names for search engines.

According to Stanford's David Koller, and Google's own website, Page and Brin's 1996 foray into the world of search engines was initially called "BackRub." As per Stanford's website, the source of David's information is his friends and colleagues from Wing 3B of the Gates Computer Science Building at Stanford University, where Google was born.

According to him, in 1996, Larry Page and Sergey Brin called their initial search engine "BackRub," named for its analysis of the web's "back links." Larry's office was in room 360 of the Gates CS Building, which he shared with several other graduate students, including Sean Anderson, Tamara Munzner, and Lucas Pereira. In 1997, Larry and his officemates discussed a number of possible new names for the rapidly improving search technology. Sean recalls the final brainstorming session as occurring one day during September of that year.

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When Google Was Almost Renamed Googol

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Sean and Larry were in their office, using the whiteboard, trying to think up a good name - something that related to the indexing of an immense amount of data. Sean verbally suggested the word "googolplex," and Page countered it with the shorter form "googol." (both words refer to specific large numbers). Sean was seated at his computer terminal, so he executed a search of the Internet domain name registry database to see if the newly suggested name was still available for registration and use.

Sean is not an infallible speller, and he made a typo when he made the mistake of searching for the name spelt as "google.com," which he found to be available. Larry liked the name, and within hours he took the step of registering the name "google.com" for himself and Sergey (the domain name registration record dates from September 15, 1997), as per Stanford's website.

Well, looking back, which one would you have liked better as a name? Google, Googol or Backrub!

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