The internet has become a part of daily life for billions of people. And for most of those people, Google is the first place they turn when they need answers.
It’s where you go to look something up, get directions, or settle an argument with a friend.
But even after 27 years, many users are only now realizing what the name “Google” actually means. And as it turns out, it all started with a spelling mistake, writes Ziare.
Google was created in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. At the time, they were two young students at Stanford University working on a new way to search the internet.
Their search engine used links to measure the importance of web pages. They first called the project “Backrub.” Later, they looked for a better name.
One day, someone suggested “Googol.” That’s a real word in math. It means the number 1 followed by 100 zeros.
Page and Brin liked it because it reflected their big mission. They wanted to organize a huge amount of online information and make it useful for everyone.
But the name was misspelled as “Google.” And they decided to keep it that way.
The word “Googol” was invented in 1920 by a boy named Milton Sirotta. He was the nephew of a mathematician named Edward Kasner. Kasner later used it in his book “Mathematics and the Imagination.”
Some people still claim that “Google” is actually an acronym. One theory says it stands for “Global Organization of Oriented Group Language of Earth.”
That idea sounds clever. But there’s no proof to support it. The founders themselves said it was just a typo.
After launching Google, Page and Brin received early support from major investors.
That included a $100,000 check from Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, also invested.
Today, Google handles over 3.5 billion searches every single day. It’s part of Alphabet Inc., which is now worth more than $1.8 trillion.
Page and Brin stepped down from their roles in 2019. But their search engine, born from a simple mistake, is still going strong.
