Google went live in September 1998 from a Stanford University dorm room

Google launched on September 4, 1998, as a search engine built by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two Stanford computer science graduate students. They registered the domain google.com on September 15, 1997, but the search engine itself did not go public until the following year. The name came from "googol," a mathematical term for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros — meant to reflect the vast amount of information the engine could search.

At the time, other search engines like AltaVista, Excite, and Yahoo already existed. Google's advantage was its ranking system, called PageRank, which rated web pages based on how many other pages linked to them. This meant Google could show more relevant results than competitors, which mostly ranked pages by keyword density alone. Users noticed the difference when ready, and Google's user base grew rapidly without traditional advertising.

The search engine ran on a handful of computers in a Stanford lab before moving to a garage in Menlo Park, California in 1998. By 1999, Google was handling about 10,000 search queries per day. The company did not go public until August 2004, six years after launch, when it held its initial public offering on the NASDAQ stock exchange.

Key Takeaways

  • Google launched in September 1998 as a search engine that ranked pages based on links rather than keyword matching, which made results more useful than existing search engines.
  • The company started in a Stanford dorm room and moved to a garage in Menlo Park before expanding into a full business.
  • Google did not run ads or charge users from the start, which was unusual for search engines at the time and helped it grow quickly.
  • The company remained private for six years before going public in 2004, by which time it had become the dominant search engine worldwide.

How Google's search method worked differently

Earlier search engines ranked results by counting how many times a search term appeared on a page. A page stuffed with the word "shoes" would rank highest for a shoe search, even if the page was low quality or irrelevant. Google's PageRank system instead looked at the structure of the web itself — if many reputable pages linked to a result, Google assumed that result was trustworthy and relevant.

This approach required more computing power than older methods. Google's founders built their own servers from cheap hardware parts and wrote software to distribute searches across many machines at once. This infrastructure became one of Google's lasting advantages: the company could scale up faster than competitors as search volume grew.

The search results page itself was also different. Google kept it straightforward — a search box, results, and almost no advertising. Competitors like Yahoo and Excite filled their pages with banner ads, news, and links to other services. Google's clean interface made it faster to load and easier to use, which mattered when most people were still on dial-up internet connections.

Google's early business model and growth

Google did not charge users to search, and it did not display banner ads on the search results page. Instead, the company made money through AdWords, a system that let businesses bid to show small text ads next to relevant search results. A shoe company could bid on the word "running shoes," and their ad would appear only when someone searched for that term. Advertisers paid only when someone clicked their ad, not just for showing it.

This model was more efficient than traditional web advertising. Businesses knew their ads reached people actively looking for their products, and they paid only for actual clicks. Google launched AdWords in 2000, two years after the search engine itself went live. The system became enormously profitable because it worked for both advertisers and users — ads were relevant rather than random, so they bothered people less.

By 2001, Google was profitable. By 2004, when the company went public, it had a market value of $23 billion. The IPO made Page and Brin wealthy and gave Google capital to expand into new products. Within a few years, Google had launched Gmail, Google Maps, Google Images, and YouTube (acquired in 2006). Today, Google's parent company Alphabet generates most of its revenue from advertising, just as it did in 1998.

Why Google became dominant so quickly

Google's rise happened faster than most internet companies because search was a problem people faced constantly. Every web user needed a way to find information, and Google solved that problem better than alternatives. Word-of-mouth spread the service without Google spending much on marketing. By 2000, Google was handling about 100 million searches per day — a tenfold increase in one year.

The company also benefited from timing. The dot-com crash of 2000 and 2001 destroyed many internet companies, but Google had already become profitable and had real users. Competitors like AltaVista and Excite either shut down or were bought by other companies. By 2003, Google had become the search engine most people used by default.

Google's dominance also came from continuous improvement. The company hired talented engineers and invested heavily in making search faster and more accurate. It added features like spell-check ("Did you mean...?"), image search, and news search. Each improvement made Google more useful, which brought more users, which gave Google more data to improve its ranking system further.

How Google's launch connects to your search history

Because Google became the dominant search engine so quickly, most of your search history is stored by Google, not by other companies. When you search on Google.com or use Google's search box in Chrome, Google records what you searched for, when you searched, and what results you clicked. This data has been collected since 1998, though Google's data retention policies have changed over time.

Google stores this information in your Google account if you are signed in. If you are signed out, Google still records searches but ties them to your IP address and browser rather than your account name. The company uses search history to personalize results — showing you results based on your past searches — and to improve its ranking system. It also uses the data for advertising, showing you ads based on what you have searched for.

Understanding that Google has been collecting search data for over 25 years helps explain why your search history can be so detailed. Google's servers contain billions of searches, and your account may hold years of your own search activity. This is why the privacy settings and deletion options covered in the main article matter: you are managing data that has accumulated over a long period.

What happened to other search engines

AltaVista, which was the leading search engine in the mid-1990s, was bought by Overture Services in 2003 and shut down in 2013. Excite, another major competitor, filed for bankruptcy in 2001. Yahoo, which started as a web directory rather than a search engine, bought Overture and tried to compete with Google but eventually gave up and licensed Google's search results instead.

Bing, launched by Microsoft in 2009, is the only major search engine that has competed with Google for an extended period. Bing powers about 3 percent of searches worldwide, while Google powers about 90 percent. DuckDuckGo, launched in 2008, focuses on privacy and does not track users, but it handles less than 1 percent of searches. These alternatives exist, but Google's early lead and continuous investment have kept it dominant.

Frequently Asked Questions

Did Google invent the internet or search engines?

No. The internet was developed in the 1960s and 1970s by government and university researchers. Search engines existed before Google — AltaVista, Excite, and others were already popular in the mid-1990s. Google invented a better way to rank search results, which made it more useful than competitors.

Can I delete my Google search history completely?

You can delete your search history from your Google account, and you can set it to auto-delete after a certain period. However, Google may still retain some information for legal and operational reasons. Deleting your history removes it from your account, but it does not prevent Google from collecting new searches going forward unless you change your privacy settings.

Why does Google remember my searches even when I am not signed in?

Google tracks searches by IP address and browser cookies even when you are not logged into an account. This allows Google to show you personalized results and targeted ads. You can use Incognito mode in Chrome to search without Google storing the search in your browser history, though Google still sees the search on its servers.

Is Google the only company that stores my search history?

Your internet service provider can see all your searches regardless of which search engine you use. Your browser also stores a local history of sites you visit. If you use a search engine other than Google, that company stores your searches too. Google straightforward handles the majority of searches, so most people's search history is stored by Google.

When did Google start showing ads in search results?

Google launched AdWords in 2000, two years after the search engine itself went live. The ads appeared as small text boxes next to search results, not as banner ads across the top of the page like competitors used. This format made ads less intrusive and more relevant, which helped Google's advertising business grow.