Good Thing = G = gopher
(this node is not part of the Jargon file, but the above is included in order not to break its continuity, as, frankly, the Jargon file entry was a bit crap.)
About Google - The company
Google was born in 1995, when Sergey Brin (23) and Larry Page (24), Computer Ph.D. comp.sci candidates meet. They work together to start developing "A little something" that would make it easier to search the "Internet" - a global networking technology that had been unleashed on the world only a year before.
The name Google is a wordplay on "Googol", which is one of the largest numbers we have a name for, namely 10100. Never mind that the googolplex (10googol)has been invented :).
Between 1996 - 1999, the technology slowly evolves, driven forward from being a two-server operation ran out of Sergey and Larry's dorm rooms, to becoming incorporated in 1998. At this time, Google got 10,000 searches every day, and PC Magazine includes the site as one of the top 100 web sites.
In 1999, all hell breaks loose - the web traffic worldwide grows exponentally, and Google handles half a million searches every day. AOL/Netscape include Google into their Netcenter, which really gets the ball rolling.
By the end of 1999, Google handles three million searches every day, and has nearly 40 employees.
From 2000, these are the major parts of Google's development;
2000:
2001
- Google buys Deja News' Usenet archives
- Google's interface becomes available in 40 languages.
- Searches can be restricted to a number of languages.
- Google introduces a translation service similar to Altavista's Babelfish
- Dr Eric Schmidt (former CEO of novell) becomes new Google CEO. Larry and Sergey become presidents of technology and products.
- Google partners with logitech to introduce instant Google searches from their itouch range of keyboards
- File type search (music, pictures, etc) is launched
- All usenet messages back to 1981 are introduced in the Google search - offering an unique possibility for historic research into the past of Internet history
2002
- Google introduces the GSA (Google Search Appliance), an integrated web search engine and dedicated server for intranet searches.
- Google introduce the Web Cache officially (caching of web pages), which had been available, but limited to beta.
- Google has more than 270 employees world wide, of which nearly 20% have PhD degrees. Approximately half of the staff works with technical solutions.
- If you were to print the entire Google index of web pages, you would end up with an 180 km high stack of papers.
So. Does Google run Windows 98?
Nope.
Google performs more than 150 million searches every day, and the technology needed to keep something like that running is truly amazing.
Google Enterprises runs the world's largest cluster of Linux servers; More than 10,000 servers (Yes, you read this correctly. Ten thousand.).
When you search, the query is routed through a set of load balanced, mirrored index servers. When a page hit is made, the results are pushed through a document server (this is where all the cached data is stored), before it eventually is showed on your web browser.
Did I say eventually? Oh, sorry. I meant to say "within half a second".
Per May 2002, Google contains more than 700 million Usenet messages (that is more than a terabyte of data) - most of what has been said in newsgroups the past 20 years. It indexes more than 2 billion web pages, and has hundreds of servers dedicated to crawling the web for new information.
Google also offers wireless search technologies, such as a Wap Portal, i-mode portal and other, more exotic technologies, such as a voice activated portal (made in cooperation with BMW, for use in automobiles), et cetera.
Google technology
Google's Pagerank technology is unique, and by far the most important part of the Google technology - it "performs an objective measurement of the importance of web pages and is calculated by solving an equation of 500 million variables and more than 2 billion terms. PageRank uses the vast link structure of the web as an organizational tool. In essence, Google interprets a link from Page A to Page B as a 'vote' by Page A for Page B. Google assesses a page's importance by the votes it receives.
Google also analyzes the pages that cast the votes. Votes cast by pages that are themselves 'important' weigh more heavily and help to make other pages important." (source: The google press center). This technology means that if you enter "microsoft", Microsofts website is likely to come up on top, increasing the chances of you finding what you need. (bad example - why would you need Google to find Microsoft? Anyway, you know what I mean)
But google is always continuing their research... New features include:
- the Google Calculator, which you can use for basic arithmetic (enter "1+1" into the search engine, and it will tell you the answer is "2", along with the search results for "1+1")
- Local search - on local.google.com you can search for businesses that are in your state, area code or zip code - or in areas close to these. This currenly only works in the US, but it probably won't be long until other countries' Googles will follow suit.
- Google News: This function searches through news sites and presents them together
- Google Images: This function allows you to search for images on pages that use your search words, or images that have your search word in the file name
- Google Groups: A complete, fully searchable Usenet archive, including all posts since 1981!
- Google Directory: Google's version of Yahoo's directory-based indexing, rather than the regular search approach
- Google Glossary - Find definitions for words, phrases and acronyms
- Google News Alerts - Specify a topic and receive email updates when news breaks
- Google OS: You can search for OS-specific items, such as apple (http://www.google.com/mac) or Linux (http://www.google.com/linux), or BSD or Windows.
- Google Answers: Get a researcher to do your internet searching for you!
- Google University Search - Narrow your search to a specific School website
But it doesn't stop there - the Google Labs site (labs.google.com) is a showcase of all sorts of new search engine goodies, currently in Alpha or Beta status, which may or may not be released in the future:
- Froogle: Search products from your cell phone
- Google deskbar: Search Google without opening your browser
- Google Compute: Google's version of distributed computing
- Google Sets: Automatically create sets of items from a few examples
- Google Viewer: View search results as scrolling web page images
- Google Webquotes: View search results with quotes about the sites from other websites
- Keyboard Shortcuts: Navigate search results without using your mouse
- Voice search: Search on Google by voice, with a simple telephone call!
Try them yourself:
All functions that are out of beta are available on http://www.google.com/options/
All functions that are still in beta are available on http://labs.google.com/
Google in our vocabulary
The word "Google" has had a far larger impact on our language than any other name of an internet site. For one thing, it is one of the very few site names that has been accepted into the Oxford English Dictionary as a word: "To Google" is synonymous with searching the internet - even if you intend to use a different search engine than the Google engine itself. (Granted "to Slashdot" and "Slashdotted" are also two words that have taken on two other meanings than the original meaning (the name of the Slashdot site), but these are largely geekspeak, rather than common-use words.)
I am currently researching the exact topography and specs for Google's servers, but this might take a while, as their press department isn't too effective.