And you thought ....

You know Google! Well, might be that its your home page, might be that you prefer it over all the search engines available today but ... there are some interesting facts about 'Google' which you would like to know. Go through these and you might enjoy them for once.

  • Google.com – The domain was registered on 15 September 1997.
  • In 1997, Google’s prototype was named “BackRub”.
  • Google started off its first operations in a rented Garage.
  • The name ‘Google’ was an accident. A spelling mistake made by the original founders who thought they were going for ‘Googol’.
  • The prime reason the Google home page is so bare is due to the fact that the founders didn’t know HTML and just wanted a quick interface. In fact it was noted that the submit button was a long time coming and hitting the RETURN key was the only way to burst Google into life.
This is how Google page looked in 1997



  • The infamous “I feel lucky” is nearly never used. However, in trials it was found that removing it would somehow reduce the Google experience. Users wanted it kept. It was a comfort button. I’m Feeling Lucky Costs Google $110 Million a Year.
  • Google’s first chef Charlie Ayers, ( hired in 1999 ) quit Google and opened his own restaurant in 2005.
  • Employees are encouraged to use 20% of their time working on their own projects. Google News, Orkut are both examples of projects that grew from this working model.
  • Google won the prestigious award for Technical Achievement in 2000. In the nominees list there were no search engines at all.
  • The Google logo was never centered (as it appears today). It only appeared centered in March 2001. It was aligned to the left earlier. (And there were a lot more distractions then).
  • Google’s first employee is Craig Silverstein. Craig is the man behind “exact search” (where you get pages containing the exact search term within quotes.)
This is how Google page looked in 1998


  • In 1999, when Google moved to their Paolo Alto office, there were only 19 employees in the company. Today there are 0ver 2,700 Googlers.
  • Google reckons only 10% of the world’s information is online.
  • 70% of Google engineers are working on search-related problems.
  • Baba Tiratzo does not work for Google!