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nAngoogol is a really, really large number: a one with 100 zeros. n
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n10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
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nAndnthe inventors of the web-search engine Google wanted a name thatnwould hint that their search engine was connected to a really, reallynlarge number of websites. So they took the math term, gave it a smallnspelling tweak, and Google was born!
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nBeforenthere was Google…
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nYes,nthere really was life before there was Google. There was even anninternet, also known as the World Wide Web, before there was Google.nAfter all, Google is only 13 years old today!
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nBacknin the “olden days,” the early 1990s, there was Archie, a programnthat downloaded the directory listings of all the files available onnthe web. If you knew a file name, you could manually search for it innArchie. (The name Archie comes from the word “archive,”nwhich means a collection of documents or records.)
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nThennthere were Veronica and Jughead. (These program names come fromncharacters in “Archie” comic books, so these names were a play onnthe name of the original web tool.) With Veronica, people couldnsearch using a keyword; and with Jughead, people could get menuninformation.
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nWandexnwas an index of the World Wide Web and probably the first true searchnengine. It was invented in 1993. At least five more search enginesnwere produced during the following year; but then, in 1995, there wasna “BOOM” of search engines offered up to users. (Notice hownquickly we moved from “first” to “boom” – just two years!)nThese included Magellan, Excite, Infoseek, Inktomi, Northern Light,nAltaVista, and Yahoo! Yahoo was the most popular and is still usedntoday – but since its launch in 1998, Google took over. These days,nGoogle is used for 91% of all searches, Yahoo! is used for only 4% ofnall searches, and the third-place search engine, bing (launched justna few years ago), is used for 3% of all searches.
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nSonI guess you could say that Google pretty much dominates the scene!
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nWhynGoogle? Users can search the internet more easily because the Googlenalgorithm searches entire web pages for keywords (not just thendirectory or website names), and it displays results arranged fromnthe most-linked-to websites to the least-linked-to sites. This isnbased on the idea that the best, most useful, most interesting, andnmost beautiful websites will be linked to most often. n
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nAnName Is a Noun, Except When It’s a Verb
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nNotnonly has the name “Google” become almost synonymous with the termn“search engine,” because of its enormous popularity, but it hasnbecome a verb, even. “Why don’t you google that?” means, “Whyndon’t you look that up on the internet?” We could say “google it”nwhen we mean look something up on Ask Jeeves or on Ask.com—but wenprobably say “google it” because we know with 91% certainty thatnthe person is going to look it up on Google!
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nTherenhave been a few other names of companies that have become nouns thatnmean a particular item of any brand—for example, we often usen“kleenex” to refer to facial tissue of any brand—but there havenbeen few company names that have become both nouns and verbs. Can younthink of any?
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- Onenis “xerox,” which can mean either “a copy” or “to copy,”neven if the copying machine is made by a company other than Xerox.nFor example:
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nnPlease bring a xerox of your birthncertificate.
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nnDon’t forget to xerox your birthncertificate.
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- Anothernis “rollerblades” (the noun, which is often used for in-line skates of any brand) and “rollerblading” (the verb).
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- Somenpeople say “hoovering” to mean “to vacuum,” after a famous vacuumncleaner manufacturer, Hoover.
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