Oh, Google…it has grown up so fast. It seems like only yesterday it was a tiny project launched by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. It went from a single search engine to the largest internet conglomerate in the world, dominating the web entirely.
They have their hand in social media and networking, shopping, travel, academia…really, you would be hard pressed to find anything online they have not been involved with in some way, directly or indirectly.
It is easy to look at them as our Digital Masters and forget the more humble roots that they sprang from. Here are a couple of ‘firsts’ from the company that has grown into a powerhouse.
First Indexed Page
Google’s crawlers had to start from somewhere. The starting point was actually Larry Page’s own Standford page, which he released the first bot to. It indexed the page and moved on, creating the massive database we use today.
First Home Page
In 1996, Google was launched as a Standford web page, rather than as its own site. That was its first incarnation, which lasted for a year as it slowly gained steam and eventually its founders thought it was time it got its own place. That was in 1997, where it became Google.com.
What is interesting is that during this time, it was labeled as ‘Beta’ for the first time, and available for widespread use. So in a way, it has had two first home pages.
First Logo
Google didn’t have an official logo until 1997, when it was moved to its own site. The original was created by co-founder Sergey Brinn, who made the colorful image we know today using GIMP. It would always remain in this general incarnation, including the same colors minus a slight change from orange to yellow on the second ‘O’.
First Investor
It is well known that Brinn and Page did not have a lot of luck catching the attention of investors in the beginning. But they did manage to turn one head, and it landed them their first $100,000. That initial investor was Sun Microsystem’s founder Andy Bechtolsheim, who will forever be credited with having helped the biggest online company in the world take their first steps.
Fun fact: Google was not incorporated when he invested. But the check said Google Inc., so the duo decided they should probably make the title official.
First Employee
Other than the founders themselves, the first person to work for the company was Craig Silverstein, a PhD candidate in Computer Science at Stanford University. He left the company in 2012, having played a major role in the company and products overall development. Without him, you can be sure Google would not be the success it is todat.
Silverstein now works for Khan University.
Have any firsts for Google that you think are especially important or interesting? Let us know in the comments!
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For month i have been striving to understand how Google works.
How on earth Sergey Brin & Larry Page become one of the weathiest people in America in this short period of time? There must be something unique in what they’re doing. Please help me understand this.
I created an account but now I regret it because Tumblr is down every other time I enter into the pag and I don’t like it…I only made an account because it is a popular site. Are there any other blog sites or microblogging sites that are better?
Just a little bit confused
Well i wanted to get a diary,but i can”t find a good enough one that i want. Is there any websites that i can personalize a diary and write in it?
I’m doing this project in English, and I have to write about someone and give them a fake award. My teacher said we need around 3 people, in case one of ours gets taken.
So far, I have the people who created Google:Larry Page and Sergey Brin(I didn’t even now them till I googled it)
I have been a substitute teacher for the last few years, this year will be my first time starting off the school year. I will be teaching grade 7 science. Anyone have any fun first day of school activities?
Did yahoo or google come first?? Also, why do people think google is doing better?? They dont have nearly as many features!
When I type anything into google, the first two results are always an advertisement for a search style site.
For example if i type “Wikipedia” into Google, the first link is normally to the Wikipedia homepage. Now it is http://www.delv.co.uk/ and uk.12finder.com/ with the third result being en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia
This makes it difficult if I am searching for a specific site, as the third link isnt always a link to the he direct site, and can be completely different. Basically, does anyone know why this is happening and is the a way to fix it.
The main problem with this is I dont get the first results.
please anyone answer me sitemap? robots.txt?