The History of Google

Google is now one of the biggest brands on the internet and is recognised around the world. Which makes it hard to believe the humble origins of the behemoth known as Google.

Google began with two university students who originally hated each other, and turned into a story of entrepreneurship of the greatest degree. Larry Page and Sergey Brin met at Stanford University in 1995. At first they argued about every topic they discussed, although they found a mutual interest in solving one of computer science’s greatest dilemmas: searching huge amounts of data for relevant information.

By January 1996, Larry and Sergey had begun to work on a search engine called BackRub, so named for its ability to analyse links that point to a web site. Within a year BackRub had started to gain exposure and generate lots of interest, and by 1998 after receiving US$100,000 of investment Google Inc was born.

The organisation evolved quicker than anyone anticipated, and introduced their pay per click targeted advertising for business called Adwords, and subsequently continued to improve the platform until 2002. From this point the AdWords platform was overhauled to benefit smaller businesses.

AOL named Google the number one search engine and decided to utilise their search and advertising services for all of its 34 million members.

Google has come a long way from its original beginnings, but throughout its development a simple user interface has been key to success. You can see from visiting the way back machine how Google used to look when it was launched in 1998. Other search engines have often overloaded their homepage which almost overwhelms new internet users.

Today search engine marketing (SEM) is primarily focused around Google and gaining visibility within its Search rankings. In November 2008 Hitwise reports that Google (.com/.co.uk) had 90.18% of the UK search market. So you can understand that Google is the main point of focus for nearly all search marketing campaigns. I always aim to increase a website’s ranking in all primary search engines, but utilising search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques that target Google specifically is the best way to generate more revenue.

It is important that you trust the person who is managing your search engine marketing when wanting to gain visibility within Google. This is because there are SEO practices that will lose a websites visibility because they are classed as flagrant cheating. These techniques are often refereed to as ‘Black Hat’ techniques. So it is important to ensure you work with individuals who are experts within SEO and online marketing.

Google offers a vast range of search engine marketing services from paid placement to pay-per-click (PPC) advertising with AdWords. Pay-per-click is one of the most cost effective ways to advertise, as you only pay for actual referrals and Google has the single largest distribution network for your adverts, making it the obvious choice for any large targeted online marketing campaign.

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