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Google

simple:Google

Googlean Internet search engine that not only indexesWorld Wide Web, but also cachesweb pages themselves. It also indexes pictures onweb, Usenet newsgroupsnews sites. As2003,wasmost popular search engine, handling upwards80%all internet searches through its websiteclients like YahooAOL.

The popularityGoogleshown byfact that nowadaysverb "to google"sometimes used"doingweb search". Google itself does not like this usage, asfearsdilutionpotential lossits trademark (as happenedYo-yoEscalator).

Tablecontents
1 The company
2 Optimization
3 Google andcourts
4 Other tools
5 Books
6 Related articles
7 External links
8 References

The company

Google was established by Larry PageSergey Brin, two Stanford Ph.D students who developedtheory thatsearch engine based onmathematical analysis ofrelationships between websites would produce better results thanbasic techniques thenuse. Convinced thatpages withmost linksthem on other sites must bemost relevant ones,decidedtest this thesis as parttheir studies,laidfoundation fortheir search engine. They founded their company in September 1998.

The company, headquarteredMountain View, California,privately held, withmajor investors beingventure capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Sequoia Capital. In October 2003, while discussingpossible initial public offering,company was approached by Microsoft aboutpossible partnership or merger; Google apparently rejectedoffer. In January 2004,was announced that Google had hired Morgan StanleyGoldman Sachs Grouparrange its initial public offering. That IPO—one ofmost anticipatedhistory (Marshall, 2003)—might raise as much as $4 billion, giving Googlemarket capitalization$12 billion, according tobanker involved intransaction.

Etymology

The word "Google" isplay onword 'googol', which was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephewAmerican mathematician Edward Kasner1938,refer tonumber represented by 1 followed by 100 zeros. Google's use ofterm reflectscompany's missionorganizeimmense amountinformation available onWeb.

PageRank

Google uses an algorithm called PageRankrank web pages that matchgiven search string. The PageRank algorithm computesrecursive figuremeritweb pages, based onweighted sum ofPageRanks ofpages linkingthem. The PageRank thus derives from human-generated links,correlates wellhuman concepts'importance'. Previous keyword-based methodsranking search results, used by many search engines that were once more popular than Google, would rank pages by how oftensearch terms occurred inpage, or how strongly associatedsearch terms were within each resulting page. In additionPageRank, Google also uses other secret criteriadeterminingrankingpages on result lists.

Servers

Google employsfarmmore than 10,000 GNU/Linux computersanswer search requests andindexweb. The indexingperformed byprogram ("googlebot") which periodically requests new copies ofweb pagesalready knows about. The linksthese pagesexamineddiscover new pagesbe addedits database. The index databaseweb page cacheseveral terabytessize.

Optimization

Since Google has become one ofmost popular search engines, many webmasters have become interestedfollowingattemptingexplain changes torankingstheir websites.

An industryconsultants has arisenassist websitesimproving their rankings at Google, as well as other search engines. This field, called search engine optimization, attemptsdiscern patternssearch engine listings,then developmethodologyincreasing rankings.

Forums can be found onweb where phenomena such as"Google dance"discussed. The Google dance isperiod offew days towardsend ofmonth when Google updates its databaseranking algorithms. Changes todatabase can be observed by examiningnumberresults tosearch such as "link:www.yahoo.com".

During"dance" period,site's ranking may change dramatically overshort periodtimedifferent Google servers (e.g., www.google.com, www2.google.com, www3.google.com, www.google.co.uk, www.google.com.au etc.) may give different results forsame search. The dance period appearscoincide withtime at whichgooglebot examines "stable" sites. Rapidly changing sites, highly ranked sitesnews sitesexamined more often, although apart from news, only minor adjustmentsmaderankings during most ofmonth. In some casesmay take two or three months before new pages appearsearch results.

The monthly searching, indexingranking cycle was replaced bycontinuous rolling update insummer2003. This change inway google updates significantly reducedunstable results ofmonthly update "dance".

OneGoogle's chief challengesthat as its algorithmsresults have gainedtrustweb users,profitbe gained bycommercial web sitesubverting those results has increased dramatically. Some search engine optimization firms have attemptedinflate their Google ranking by various artificial means, attemptingdraw more searcherstheir clients' sites. Google has apparently manageddefeat or weaken these attempts by reducingrankingsites knownuse them.

Google publishessetguidelineswebsite owners interestedimproving their rankings using legitimate optimization consultants. [1]

Google andcourts

Google's effortsrefine its database has ledsome legal controversy, drawinglawsuit fromcompany, SearchKing, that soughtsell advertisements on pagesinflated Google rankings. Google has statedits defense that its rankingsits constitutionally protected opinions ofweb sites thatlists. [1] [1]

Google has been criticizedplacing long-term cookies on users' machines, enabling themtrackuser's search terms over time. However, mostGoogle's services can be usedcookies disabled.

A numberorganizations (most controversiallyChurchScientology) have usedDigital Millennium Copyright Actdemand that Google remove referencesallegedly copyrighted material on other sites. Google typically handles this by removinglink as requestedincludinglink tocomplaint insearch results. There have also been complaints that"Google cache" feature violates copyright. However,consensus seemsbe that caching isnormal part offunctionality ofweb,that HTTP provides adequate mechanismsrequesting that caching be disabled (which Google respects;also honorsrobots.txt file).

In 2002, there were news reports thatGoogle search engine had been bannedChina. A mirror site (in all respects, including mirrored text) called elgooG proved usefulget aroundban. The ban was later lifted,reports indicated thatwas not Google itself that was targeted. Rather, Google's feature ofcached version ofwebsite would allow Chinese userscircumvent any ban ofwebsite itself, merely by visitingcache instead. Therealsodynamic Google mirror working asproxy server at http://www.zensur.freerk.com/google/. Itinterestingnote thatmore comprehensive caching serviceprovided byInternet Archive, yet this site was not banned.

In late 2003early 2004, there were persistent rumors that Google would be sued bySCO Group over its use ofLinux operating system,conjunctionSCO's lawsuit against IBM overownershipintellectual property rights relatingLinux.

Other tools

Google Groups (Usenet)

Google also hasusenet archive, called Google Groups (formerly an independent site known as Dejanews), an experimental machine translation services (see link below),an image search function (called "Google Images").

Google News

Google introducedbeta release (a product ofso-called Google Labs)an automated news compilation service, "Google News"April 2002.

Thereversions forlanguages English, German, French, Spanish,Italian. It coversnews articles that appeared withinpast 30 days on news websites inlanguage concerned, from various countries; forEnglish languagecovers about 4,500 sites, forother languages less. It provides aroundfirst 200 characterslinks tofull article. Somethese websites requiresubscription;that case thismentioned inGoogle News summarytheir articles.

Google News provides searching, andchoicesortingresults by datetimepublishing (notbe confuseddatetime ofnews happening) or grouping them (and also grouping without searching). InEnglish versiongrouping can optionally be tailored toselected national audience. For any query, up1000 results can be shown.

Users can request Google News Alerts on various topics by subscribing withusekey words. An emailsent whennews article matchingrequest appears online.

Google answers

In April 2002, Google launchednew service called "Google Answers". Google Answersan extension toconventional search - rather than doingsearch yourself, you pay someone elsedosearch. Customers ask questions, offerpricean answer,researchers answer them. Pricesquestions range from $2$200, Google keeps 25% ofpayment, passingrest toresearchers,charges an additional 50c listing fee. In May 2003 this service came outbeta, thoughsite hasn't attracted as many customers as hoped.

Blogging

In February 2003, Google acquired Pyra Labs, ownerblogger.com,pioneeringleading blog-hosting website. Upon first glance,acquisition seemed inconsistent withgeneral "mission"Google. However,was soon theorized that Google perhaps plansutilize information gleaned from blog postingsimprovespeedrelevancyarticles containedGoogle News.

Calculator

Google also includescalculatorunits converter, see [1].

Google Glossary

In May, 2002, Google launchedbeta versionGoogle Glossary,search tool that, forgiven word, retrievesdefinitionshas been given on various web pages.

Search by Location

In September, 2003, Google laungedbeta versionSearch by Location, which acts likenormal Google search, but lets you geographically restrictsearch (withinU.S.) by state, city or zipcode. It will also provide youmaps tolisted sites,an estimate ondistancedirection tosites.

Google Deskbar

In December 2003, Google launchedbeta version ofGoogle Deskbar,search tool which runs fromWindows system tray, withoutbrowser havingbe open. It can return film reviews, stock quotes, dictionarythesaurus defintitions, plus any pre-configured search ofthird-party site (e.g. eBay or Amazon).

Froogle

Also,December 2003, Google announced Froogle,spin-off that searches cataloguesparticular products. This site had been activebetasome months.

Google Toolbar

An extensionMicrosoft's Internet Explorer adds Google searching capabilitiesInternet Explorer - which has been criticisedbeingserious security risk asupdates itself without user intervention. Other browsers, like Mozilla Firebird, have built-in scripts that performsame abilites.

Books

Google Hacks from O'Reilly & Associates isbook containing tips about using Google effectively.

Related articles

External links

Google.com links

Other sites

References

see also: googol

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