Google has come a long way; from one of the Internet search engine to the worlds most popular search engine. It is preferred over search engines which are one among the pioneers of the search engine such as AltaVista, Infoseek, Netscape and Lycos.
Google piggyback on its innovative strategy to generate revenue by placing advertisements on sites which contain information related to those ads has indeed made Google highly profitable. The revenue model, almost since beginning, has been successful in giving its competitors a run for their money. In a short span of time, Google has become the best search engine by eating into the market share of Yahoo AltaVista, Infoseek, Netscape and Lycos.
Google always focused on product development which is user friendly and offers great customer experience. No wonder, Google, since inception came up with innovative ideas like Blogs, AdWords, video search and many other features on its search engine, which offered great user experience. It also helped, Google developed an emotional character that transcends cultural, geographical and language barriers. This inherent strength of Google in initial days helped survive in industry which was dominated by industry power house like Yahoo and Microsoft and later on helped it emerge as the winner. Google has focused on its strength by constantly projecting solutions to problems first rather than making money.
Google has
The Birth
The beginning of the story, Google started when Sergey Brin and Larry Page were doing their Ph.D. at Stanford University in computer science, as a part of research group called MIDAS (Mining Data at Stanford). Sergey Brin, with his Professor Rajiv Motwani started experimenting on finding ways to extract information from large chunks of data. Larry Page, at the same time spent time with the search engines (Altavista, Yahoo etc.) on Digital Libraries Project to find how they analyzed data.
Sergey Brin and Larry Page, after teaming up started downloading the web onto his desktop and even devised a method he called PageRank that would assign priority to websites with quality links. The PageRank, going forward would be backbone of the search engine Google.
In 1997, Page developed a primitive search engine called BackRub which was later renamed Google. The duo left Stanford University in the fall of 1998 moving their search engine to a nearby garage. On September 07, 1998, they established the Google Inc. The duo started experimenting on the Google’s web design to make it look more polished with high speed.
The Early Days
The search engine became quite popular through word-of-mouth, e-mails and instant messages. In 1998, PC Magazine had chosen Google as the top 100 web sites. By 2001, Google was on its way to become a lexicon in the dictionary continuing to offer 100 million searches per day making it one of the top notch quality services to people across the world.
Google started with difference and positioned it as no-nonsense search engine. Google, unlike traditional search engines which place search ads mixing them with search results to make money, started delivering accurate results to the keywords placed in search. They found the idea of placing ads in the site more commercialized and will ultimately dilute the main purpose of the search engines.
In Search of Revenue Model
The duo realized that only great product will not generate revenue they have to work on the revenue model. But at the cost of revenue generation they were not in favor of compromising on the search results quality. The duo after much brainstorming with Google team finds out a source to earn revenues. Google develop its business around two revenue streams – online advertising and search services. Google has been generating enough revenue from its AdWords, AdSense and Gmail service. The revenue model was well received by the viewers and the users.
The difference between Google and Yahoo is the revenue factor. Yahoo gets its revenue from Yahoo mail, ads, and some other features where as Google gets almost 85% of its revenue from ads. Google’s success has incited Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo to develope their own commercial search offerings
Google – More than a Search Engine
In early days of search engine growth when most of the online search engine companies spent a lot of money on marketing to build their brands, Google, focused solely on building a ‘better’ search engine. Everything Google did from the development of advanced technology to the design of user interface was focused on delivering the best search results. The effort to develop a better search engine help Google develop a brand.
When Google entered the online search market, Yahoo was the market leader. Their persistent efforts towards that objective proved fruitful as, in a span of five years, Google placed itself ahead of Yahoo in the search engine market. In 2002, Google pioneered the concept of AdWords and AdSense, and thus created a sensation in the field of online advertising.
Now, Google is much more than a search engine, it offers various other features for its users. List of the services which Google offers to its users apart from the search engine are:
Google Desktop : Search and personalize your computer
Google Earth : Explore the world from your computer
Google Finance : Business info, news, and interactive charts
iGoogle : Add news, games and more to the Google homepage
Images : Search for images on the web
Google Maps : View maps and directions
Google News - now with archive search; Search thousands of news stories
Google Scholar : Search scholarly papers
Google Video : Search for videos on Google Video and YouTube
Gmail : Fast, searchable email with less spam
Groups : Create mailing lists and discussion groups
Orkut : Meet new people and stay in touch with friends
Picasa : Find, edit and share your photos
Reader : Get all your blogs and news feeds fast
Sites : Create websites and secure group wikis
Google Talk : IM and call your friends through your computer
Google Translate : View web pages in other languages
Google YouTube : Watch, upload and share videos
Google is increasing its revenues with introduction of new features.
Google – growing with Strategic Partnerships and Acquisition
Google has served various strategic partnerships with companies like Yahoo!, AOL, Earthlink, and Ask Jeeves. The strategic partnership in place, its ad business was showing signs of good growth.
Read: Google built on Acquisition to know more about Google Acquisitions in past.
Google grew to such an extent that it was very tough replicating its network or business for its competitors. The constant innovation at Google is the real motive for its services.
Conclusion
Google will remain the best and popular company both electronically and emotionally. The company employs brilliant mathematicians, engineers and technologists to tackle all the problems. The Google team, have developed a firm that doesn’t need any introduction or promotion. It has replaced Microsoft with its rapid pace of innovation and mantle of leadership. Google has placed itself in a special position in the hearts and minds of many people throughout the world.
Brand Google
Google, the largest search engine, besides restricting itself as the number one search engine globally has become a one stop shop destination for many other offerings. It offers G-mail, the fast e-mail service; Google Earth replaced, atlas; Google News replaced newspapers and magazines. Google digitize all books available on the planet to offer e-versions of books. With so much to offer, it was no wonder that starting its journey as a humble search engine in late nineties, the company had emerged as one of the most powerful brands by 2006.
Beginning of Journey
Google was co-founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were students at Stanford University. Larry Page and Sergey Brin planned to develop a new way for online search. The idea behind the setting up of the Google was to organize all the globally available information and make it accessible and useful to all people across the world. Google was incorporated as a privately held company on September 7, 1998.
In 2000, Google was answering 18 million queries daily and maintained a repository of one billion URLs (Uniform Resource Locator). Unlike other search engines, which relied on servers to answer the queries, Google linked PCs to answer the query fast and in accurate manner. This technology leads to a faster response time, greater scalability and lesser cost.
Google offers search facility on different subjects, in different languages, and users could search information on Google Toolbar, Google Deskbar, and on mobile through WAP and i-mode phones. Along with search facilities, Google also provided images, pages in different languages, airlines information and phone numbers, spell check and translation of web pages. Google to stay ahead in the competition and to become one of the most innovative companies, Google used PageRank and Hypertext-Matching Analysis technologies to provide reliable, fast and accurate information.
Google – Name
When Larry Page and Sergey Brin established Google, the prime focus was on developing a ‘perfect search engine’ as Larry Page, defined Google as some thing that, ‘understands exactly what you mean and gives you back exactly what you want’.
The name ‘Google’ was derived from the word ‘googol’ which meant a mathematical term for 1 followed by 100 zeroes (Googol means 10100). The company was named by nine year old Milton Sirotta, nephew of noted American mathematician Edward Kasner, and was popularized in the book, “Mathematics and the Imagination” by Edward Kasner and James Newman. The name Google itself portrayed the company’s mission to organize information available on the internet. The name and meaning of the name reflected the company’s mission to organize virtually all the information available on the web and make it easily available free of cost. The word Google portrayed both technological and scientific supremacy and not an improbable, silly word.
Google – USP
The unique selling proposition of the Google brand was its searching specialization. Contrary to other search engines, which was evolved as media portals, Google remained a search engine. The four elements based on which Larry Page and Sergey Brin positioned Google differently from the rest of the companies were speed, accuracy, objectivity and easy usage. The easy usage and benefit transformed Google from a search engine to one of the most successful global brands.
Google – Logo
In 1998 Sergey Brin designed the logo of the company, to portray the essence of a cheerful, innovative and technical brand. Sergey Brin wanted Google to carry the fancy and fun Image which reflects in its name, image and logo of the company. The colorful rounded edges depicted that the company is approachable and friendly but at the same time means business and was serious about its work. Google, backed by a great idea and concept, supported by a service that delivers and portrayed by a fun logo and a relevant name, the company enjoyed high brand loyalty.
Google – Brand Expansion
By 2000, Google piggyback on the four elements – Speed, accuracy, objectivity and ease of use became the largest Internet search engine. With time only one aspect of Google brand changed, which was done in a careful manner. It extended its philosophy from online internet search to easy availability of information, without considering the mode of delivery. Google retained its core online search engine as a separate brand identity and launched a separate brand for its different product category. (I will discuss Google – Brand Expansion in detail soon)
In 2004, Google created new product categories and forayed into unrelated areas viz. social networking, email services, Google earth, Google mini. The Google Search Appliance, the new hardware of Google also signified the brand image of Google.
Google – word-of-mouth way
In 2006, Google became Generic brand with its unique model of service. Google also became synonymous for online search. Google became a household name and attained a power brand status without any advertising expenditure. The company did not spend anything on print or electronic media or online banners. Google, instead of developing the brand through the traditional way of advertising, focused on experience – user experience, customer experience or searcher experience. Google is a classic example of a power brand built on word-of-mouth. Google has strong word-of-mouth because it delivers on its uncomplicated promise. Its reputation spread with word of mouth from millions of satisfied users of Google as a search engine and helped the brand building process.
Google – Marching Ahead
A simple and uncomplicated business model which was supported by a simple brand and logo was the main prerequisite for the company’s success. Google portrayed itself as a company of 21st century and amazed many companies with its meteoric success.
Beginning of Journey
Google was co-founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were students at Stanford University. Larry Page and Sergey Brin planned to develop a new way for online search. The idea behind the setting up of the Google was to organize all the globally available information and make it accessible and useful to all people across the world. Google was incorporated as a privately held company on September 7, 1998.
In 2000, Google was answering 18 million queries daily and maintained a repository of one billion URLs (Uniform Resource Locator). Unlike other search engines, which relied on servers to answer the queries, Google linked PCs to answer the query fast and in accurate manner. This technology leads to a faster response time, greater scalability and lesser cost.
Google offers search facility on different subjects, in different languages, and users could search information on Google Toolbar, Google Deskbar, and on mobile through WAP and i-mode phones. Along with search facilities, Google also provided images, pages in different languages, airlines information and phone numbers, spell check and translation of web pages. Google to stay ahead in the competition and to become one of the most innovative companies, Google used PageRank and Hypertext-Matching Analysis technologies to provide reliable, fast and accurate information.
Google – Name
When Larry Page and Sergey Brin established Google, the prime focus was on developing a ‘perfect search engine’ as Larry Page, defined Google as some thing that, ‘understands exactly what you mean and gives you back exactly what you want’.
The name ‘Google’ was derived from the word ‘googol’ which meant a mathematical term for 1 followed by 100 zeroes (Googol means 10100). The company was named by nine year old Milton Sirotta, nephew of noted American mathematician Edward Kasner, and was popularized in the book, “Mathematics and the Imagination” by Edward Kasner and James Newman. The name Google itself portrayed the company’s mission to organize information available on the internet. The name and meaning of the name reflected the company’s mission to organize virtually all the information available on the web and make it easily available free of cost. The word Google portrayed both technological and scientific supremacy and not an improbable, silly word.
Google – USP
The unique selling proposition of the Google brand was its searching specialization. Contrary to other search engines, which was evolved as media portals, Google remained a search engine. The four elements based on which Larry Page and Sergey Brin positioned Google differently from the rest of the companies were speed, accuracy, objectivity and easy usage. The easy usage and benefit transformed Google from a search engine to one of the most successful global brands.
Google – Logo
In 1998 Sergey Brin designed the logo of the company, to portray the essence of a cheerful, innovative and technical brand. Sergey Brin wanted Google to carry the fancy and fun Image which reflects in its name, image and logo of the company. The colorful rounded edges depicted that the company is approachable and friendly but at the same time means business and was serious about its work. Google, backed by a great idea and concept, supported by a service that delivers and portrayed by a fun logo and a relevant name, the company enjoyed high brand loyalty.
Google – Brand Expansion
By 2000, Google piggyback on the four elements – Speed, accuracy, objectivity and ease of use became the largest Internet search engine. With time only one aspect of Google brand changed, which was done in a careful manner. It extended its philosophy from online internet search to easy availability of information, without considering the mode of delivery. Google retained its core online search engine as a separate brand identity and launched a separate brand for its different product category. (I will discuss Google – Brand Expansion in detail soon)
In 2004, Google created new product categories and forayed into unrelated areas viz. social networking, email services, Google earth, Google mini. The Google Search Appliance, the new hardware of Google also signified the brand image of Google.
Google – word-of-mouth way
In 2006, Google became Generic brand with its unique model of service. Google also became synonymous for online search. Google became a household name and attained a power brand status without any advertising expenditure. The company did not spend anything on print or electronic media or online banners. Google, instead of developing the brand through the traditional way of advertising, focused on experience – user experience, customer experience or searcher experience. Google is a classic example of a power brand built on word-of-mouth. Google has strong word-of-mouth because it delivers on its uncomplicated promise. Its reputation spread with word of mouth from millions of satisfied users of Google as a search engine and helped the brand building process.
Google – Marching Ahead
A simple and uncomplicated business model which was supported by a simple brand and logo was the main prerequisite for the company’s success. Google portrayed itself as a company of 21st century and amazed many companies with its meteoric success.
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