About Google

Google's corporate mission statement is:

'Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.'

So far so good, it would seem.

Google began life in 1996 at Stanford University as a collaborative search engine development project between two computer science undergraduates, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Originally called Backrub, the main thrust of the project was to develop, in Larry Page's words, "a 'web crawler' which is designed to traverse the web".

Supported by an initial investment of $100,000 from Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim, in September 1998 Google Inc. set up work space in Susan Wojcicki's garage at 232 Santa Margarita, Menlo Park.

It wasn't long before Google's search abilities were recognised, with the site awarded search engine of choice in the Top 100 Web Sites for 1998 at PC Magazine. Google "has an uncanny knack for returning extremely relevant results", they wrote.

Since the beginning Google has taken business decisions deploying new, innovative technology, rapidly, strategically and on terms that they choose. 1999 saw AOL select Google as a search partner. Yahoo followed suit a year later. In 2000 Google launched their popular Google Toolbar and relaunched their AdWords. In 2002 they retooled the service, selling ads in an auction which would factor in bid price and ad clickthrough rate.

In 2003 Google launched their AdSense program, which allowed them to expand their ad network by selling targeted ads on other websites.

Largely inspired by word of mouth, recommendation and referral uptake of Google by Internet users worldwide increased dramatically and what started off as a college project a decade ago has resulted in the creation of what is now one of the world's most successful companies.

WPP-owned research company Millward Brown reports that a combination of brand recognition and financial performance gave Google the top spot in a list of global brands. New research estimates its value to be $86bn (£43bn), a 30% year-on-year increase.

Google beat General Electric to the top spot, with the NBC Universal owner's brand value estimated at $71.4bn.

The next most valuable brands are Microsoft at $70.89bn, Coca-Cola at $58.2bn and China Mobile at $57.2bn, according to Millward Brown.

As consumers globally are becoming more intimate with their wireless services and devices even as they struggle to pay the bills, it's the technological companies that are rising to the take the top spots when it comes to brand value. That the Internet and Google have a global penetration with Google operating in over 150 international domains is a powerful contributory in its success. Google's promotional advertising spend pales into insignificance when compared to other American brands. Though the company targets the occasional niche to promote its major cash cow AdWords, or associated services like Google Analytics, Google simply hasn't needed to throw money at the wall as it attempts to reach and build an audience.

While GE, Microsoft, Coke and Apple spend billions between them on ads, Google has gained its dominant edge essentially through word of mouth, largely distributed through the Internet from person to person to person.

The major commercial search engines - Google, Yahoo and MSN - drive the majority of web traffic. Google attracts approximately 60% of worldwide searches. Google slightly increased its lead as the most popular search engine in the U.K. to 75.3% of all search queries, followed by eBay (5.5%), Yahoo! Sites (4.3%) and Microsoft Sites (3.4%).

In the USA Google's percentage of total U.S searches sat at 61.8% out of the total 10.8 billion searches. Google processed nearly 6.7 billion U.S searches. This is equal to approximately 214 million searches a day, an increase of 38 million search queries a day since July 2007. From July 2007 to May 2008, Google processed a total of 65.6 billion U.S searches, an average of 5.96 billion searches a month.

Put simply - if you want a piece of the online action you simply HAVE to be at the top end of Google returns.

What is it about Google that makes it so popular and profitable? The principle answer to that question is that Google largely does what it is meant to do - in this case web search - in an extremely effective and direct manner, better than the competition. Google's product is superior. It's a best in breed and has had the foresight and ambition to develop a range of complimentary services to enhance its portfolio.

It now carries email, calendars, analytics, chat, maps, Google Earth and office productivity software. More recently a web browser Chrome and an open source mobile phone operating Android have been added to the growing list of solutions

Google as a search engine is clearly superior compared the competing core algorithmic search products.

The algorithm Google use to return search results is all about authority and relevance of the return in relation to the query. Relevance is the all-important criterion especially for Google - the Holy Grail of SEO. Search engines live to deliver relevant search returns - they strive endlessly to achieve relevance - it's what defines their overall success. Keywords, in particular the title tags and those contained within the body, are the largest contributory factors to the 'on page' relevance of the page. Off page influences such as the quantity and quality of inbound links also have an important bearing on ranking. Over the years Google have worked hard at introducing many more semantic elements into its searches, curbing link spam, and increasing the influence of authoritative inbound links.

Google's focus on relevance and user experience is legendary and another contributory factor in its success. Product decisions at Google are driven by optimising first for the user experience and for revenue second. Google firmly believe that the better the user experience, the more easily money will follow. They seem to be on to something. People like to like Google - they certainly get the public vote and certainly give the impression that they do everything in their power to offer the best service possible.