How Google Now Rules the World online – Talking about using the internet to almost anyone in the developed world, and they’ll immediately think of Google. The company has become such an ingrained part of society (both on and offline) that these days most people even interchange the terms ‘search’ with ‘googling.’Google has become an institution, a fundamental part of our online lives and the immediate go-to start point for the majority of web users.
From humble beginnings to the world’s third most valuable company
Google originally startedon 4th September 1998, the brainchild of Larry Page and Sergey Brin. From the start, the founders had a very clear mission to revolutionize and improve online searches, originally based upon their PageRank algorithm, which was developed to prioritizesites and pages by their relevance and popularity. It was a wise move. In a world where there are now more web pages than people, search engines help organize and make sense of the internet. The majority of web journeys start with a search – and it’s estimated Google is the tool of choice for 90% of those searches.
Now Google is the world’s third most valuable company – but how much does that actually mean? Simple answer – a whopping $840 billion worth of value. And, really, it’s little wonder the company is valued so highly when you consider it’s very likely you started the journey to this article with a Google search.
Here are just a few other ways Google has changed the online world forever:
Google searches amount to 5.4 billion every day:
For reference, that translates to around 70k per second or 227 million per hour. As the world’s most popular search engine, Google accounts for around 90% of all online searches. Equally impressively, the firm’s sister company, YouTube, is the second most popular search engine in the world. The simple truth is, if you own a website – whether just a hobbyist blog or a full-blown corporate site – if you want traffic, you need to invest in digital marketing to ensure your site receives the maximum exposure. Placing high in Google searches is a guaranteed way to drive more traffic to your content.
Google is used by more than 75% of the US population:
Over the years, Google attracted more than 246 million unique users –more than 75% of the entire US population.
Mobile use is growing – substantially:
Google was one of the first search engines to prioritize the need for responsive websites – again another extremely smart move as mobile devices now account for around 63% of the search engine’s users.
Google advertising makes a lot of money:
In 2018, Google advertising revenue totaled $116.3 billion – despite the fact most SEO specialists would argue generic search results hold considerably more credibility.
Google isn’t just a search engine:
While the name ‘Google’ is synonymous with search, actually, its parent company, Alphabet, has way more tricks up its sleeve. From Google Maps to Google Earth and, of course, the company’s Android operating system, the firm has become much, much more than just the search engine it originally started as. It’s estimated there are now around 2.5 billion Android-powered devices worldwide – a number that will surely only keep growing due to Google’s open-source development policy with regards to Android and its willingness to work with hardware manufacturers worldwide.