Practically everyone knows about Google’s premier Internet search engine, Google Web Search. However, here are some interesting – albeit lesser-known – Google factoids.

– The name Google is a play on words for the term googol, which refers to the number 1 accompanied by 100 zeroes. This reflects Google’s mission to organize the Internet’s massive amount of information.

– Google was originally started as a research project at Stanford University by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who were both in their early 20s at the time. Page currently serves as products president, while Brin is technology president. Now each has more than their fair share of stock, which costs $472 as of press time.

– Google searches, which generally take less than half a second, are conducted after searching through Google’s immense collection of Web pages, which number in the billions.

– Google receives search requests from every continent on Earth, including Antarctica.

– Users can search for content in 36 languages, including Klingon, the pseudo-language popularized by television’s ‘Star Trek.’

– Google employees, who now number more than 2,600, work at company headquarters, nicknamed the Googleplex.

– PageRank is the basis of Google’s search, which gives each search term a rank to determine how useful it is. In addition, the term ‘page’ in PageRank does not come from Web page, but rather from co-founder Larry Page.

– Google employees come from all sorts of backgrounds. One operations manager is a former neurosurgeon, one software engineer is a former rocket scientist and the company’s chef formally worked for band The Grateful Dead and funk artist George Clinton.

SOURCE: Google.com Press Center

Published on April 3, 2007 at 12:00 pm