Shopping on line can be easy, simple and save you lots of money. It can also take a lot of your time, frustrate you, and result in unwanted purchases. Now the same can be said for regular high street shopping, but with the vast opportunity presented by the Internet it will pay you to spend a few minutes reading this and understanding how to better optimize your Google shopping experience:

1. Compare - without doubt the biggest advantage that the Google offers shoppers today is the ability to compare thousands of Google at a time. This is a great thing, but not necessarily all the time! Too much can be daunting at times so take advantage of the great comparison sites and where possible let them do the hard work for you.

2. Research - if it has been said it will be on the internet. Ignorance is no longer a justifiable reason for buying the wrong thing. Take the time to research in detail everything that you could possible want to know about

3. Testimonials - don't know anybody that has bought a Google? Wrong! If the Google is good the internet will let you know. Use the Internet as a friend and get testimonials before you buy.

4. Questions - Got a question about Google then search the Forums, FAQ's, Blogs etc. Don't be afraid to ask .....

5. Reputation - Never heard of the company selling Google? Don't worry, no reason why you should know every company in the world, but you know someone that does! Use the internet to find out what people are saying about Google and build up a picture of their reputation for sales, returns, customer service, delivery etc.

6. Returns - still worried that even after all of the above your Google wont be what you want? Check out the returns policy. There is so much competition now that someone, somewhere is bound to offer the terms that you are comfortable with.

7. Feedback - happy with your Google then let people know, after all you are depending on others people input in your buying decision, so why not give a little back.

8. Security - check for the yellow padlock on the Google site before you buy, and the s after http:/ /i.e. https:// = a secure site

9. Contact - got a question about Google, or want to leave a comment then check out the sites contact page. Reputable companies have them and respond.

10. Payment - ready to pay for your Google, then use your credit card or PayPal! Be aware of companies that don't accept them, there may be genuine reasons but given the huge amount of choice you have when buying online there is no reason at all not to buy via credit card or PayPal.

{{Infobox_Company| company_name = Google Inc.| company_logo = | company_type = public company (), ()| foundation = Menlo Park, California (September 7 1998)]| location_country = USA| key_people = Eric E. Schmidt, CEO/Director
Sergey Brin, Co-Founder, Technology President
Lawrence E. Page, Co-Founder, Products President
George Reyes, CFO], Computer software| revenue = 10.604 Billion [U.S. Dollar (2006)| net_income = 3.077 Billion U.S. dollar (2006)| num_employees = 15,916 (October 18 2007)]| homepage = www.google.com-->Google Inc. ( and ) is an United States public company, specializing in Internet search and online advertising. The company is based in Mountain View, California, and has 15,916 full-time employees (as of October 18 2007)." Google Announces Second Quarter 2007 Results." July 19, 2007. Retrieved on August 22, 2007. Google's mission statement is, "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."" Google Corporate Information: Company Overview." Google. Retrieved on January 6, 2007. Google's corporate philosophy includes statements such as "Don't be evil", and "Work should be challenging and the challenge should be fun", illustrating a somewhat relaxed corporate culture.

Google was co-founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were students at Stanford University and the company was first incorporated as a privately held company on September 7, 1998. Google's initial public offering took place on August 19, 2004, raising United States Dollar1.67 billion, making it worth $23 billion. Through a series of new product developments, acquisitions and partnerships, the company has expanded its initial search and advertising business into other areas, including web-based email, online mapping, office productivity, and video sharing, among others.

History Google began as a research project in January 1996 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two Doctor of Philosophy students at Stanford University, California." Corporate Information: Google Milestones." Google. Retrieved on February 23, 2007. They hypothesized that a search engine that analyzed the relationships between websites would produce better results than existing techniques, which ranked results according to the number of times the search term appeared on a page.Page, Lawrence; Brin, Sergey; Motwani, Rajeev; Winograd, Terry. " The PageRank Citation Ranking: Bringing Order to the Web." November 11, 1999. Their search engine was originally nicknamed "BackRub" because the system checked backlinks to estimate a site's importance.Battelle, John. " The Birth of Google." Wired Magazine. August, 2005. A small search engine called Rankdex was already exploring a similar strategy.Li, Yanhong. " Toward a qualitative search engine." Internet Computing, IEEE. 2 (4), July-August, 1998, 24-29.Convinced that the pages with the most links to them from other highly relevant web pages must be the most relevant pages associated with the search, Page and Brin tested their thesis as part of their studies, and laid the foundation for their search engine. Originally the search engine used the Stanford University website with the domain google.stanford.edu. The domain google.com was registered on September 15, 1997, and the company was incorporated as Google Inc. on September 7, 1998 at a friend's garage in Menlo Park, California. The total initial investment raised for the new company eventually amounted to almost $1.1 million, including a $100,000 check by Andy Bechtolsheim, one of the founders of Sun Microsystems.Google. " Google Milestones." Retrieved on July 12, 2006.

In March 1998, the company moved into offices in Palo Alto, California, home to several other noted Silicon Valley technology startups.Fried, Ian. " A building blessed with tech success." CNET. October 4, 2002. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. After quickly outgrowing two other sites, the company leased a complex of buildings in Mountain View, Santa Clara County, California at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway from Silicon Graphics (SGI) in 2003.Olsen, Stefanie. " Google's movin' on up." CNET. July 11, 2003. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. The company has remained at this location ever since, and the complex has since become known as the Googleplex (a play on the word googolplex, a 1 followed by a googol zeros). In 2006, Google bought the property from SGI for $319 million.Staff Writer. " Google to buy headquarters building from Silicon Graphics." Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal. June 16, 2006. Retrieved on February 25, 2007.

The Google search engine attracted a loyal following among the growing number of Internet users, who liked its simple design and usability.Thompson, Bill. " Is Google good for you?" BBC News. December 19 2003. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. In 2000, Google began selling advertising associated with search keyword (internet search). The ads were text-based to maintain an uncluttered page design and to maximize page loading speed. Keywords were sold based on a combination of price bid and clickthroughs, with bidding starting at $.05 per click. This model of selling keyword advertising was pioneered by Yahoo! Search Marketing (later renamed Overture Services, before being acquired by Yahoo! and rebranded as Yahoo! Search Marketing).Sullivan, Danny. " GoTo Going Strong." The Search Engine Report. July 1 1998.Pelline, Jeff. " Pay-for-placement gets another shot." CNET. February 19, 1998.Glaser, Ken. "Who Will GoTo.com?" OnlinePress.com. February 20, 1998. While many of its dot-com rivals failed in the new Internet marketplace, Google quietly rose in stature while generating revenue.

The name "Google" originated from a misspelling of "googol,"Koller, David. " Origin of the name, "Google." Stanford University. January, 2004.Hanley, Rachael. " From Googol to Google: Co-founder returns." The Stanford Daily. February 12, 2003. Retrieved on July 14, 2006. which refers to 10100 (the number represented by a 1 followed by one-hundred zeros). Having found its way increasingly into everyday language, the verb "Google (verb)", was added to the Merriam-Webster and the Oxford English Dictionary in 2006, meaning "to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet."Harris, Scott D. " Dictionary adds verb: to google." San Jose Mercury News. July 7, 2006. Retrieved on July 7 2006.Bylund, Anders. " To Google or Not to Google." The Motley Fool via MSNBC. July 5, 2006. Retrieved on July 7, 2006.

A patent describing part of Google's ranking mechanism (PageRank) was granted on September 4, 2001.Page, Lawrence. " Method for node ranking in a linked database." European Patent Organisation. September 4, 2001. Retrieved on February 25 2007. The patent was officially assigned to Stanford University and lists Lawrence Page as the inventor.

Financing and initial public offering The first funding for Google as a company was secured in the form of a United States dollar100,000 contribution from Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, given to a corporation which did not yet exist.Kopytoff, Verne; Fost, Dan. " For early Googlers, key word is $$$." San Francisco Chronicle. April 29, 2004. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. Around six months later, a much larger round of funding was announced, with the major investors being rival venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital.

Google's initial public offering took place on August 19, 2004. 19,605,052 stock were offered at a price of $85 per share.Elgin, Ben. " Google: Whiz Kids or Naughty Boys?" Business Week. August 19, 2004. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. Of that, 14,142,135 (another mathematical reference as square root of two ≈ 1.4142135) were floated by Google and 5,462,917 by selling stockholders. The sale raised $1.67 billion, and gave Google a market capitalization of more than $23 billion.Webb, Cynthia L. " Google's IPO: Grate Expectations." Washington Post. August 19, 2004. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. The vast majority of Google's 271 million shares remained under Google's control. Many of Google's employees became instant paper millionaires. Yahoo!, a competitor of Google, also benefited from the IPO because it owned 8.4 million shares of Google as of August 9, 2004, ten days before the IPO.Kuchinskas, Susan. " Yahoo and Google Settle." internetnews.com. August 9, 2004. Retrieved on February 25, 2007.

Google's post-IPO stock performance has been very good as well, with shares surging to $500 by 2007, due to strong sales and earnings in the advertising market, as well as the release of new features like the Google Desktop and personalized home page.La Monica, Paul R. " Bowling for Google." CNN. May 25, 2005. Retrieved on February 28 2007. The surge in stock price is fueled primarily by individual investors, as opposed to large institutional investors and mutual funds.

The company is listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the ticker symbol GOOG.

Growth While the company's primary market is in the web content arena, Google has begun to experiment with other markets, such as radio and print publications. On January 17, 2006, Google announced that it had purchased the radio advertising company dMarc, which provides an automated system that allows companies to advertise on the radio.Levingston, Steven. " Google Buys Company To Expand Into Radio." Washington Post. January 18, 2006. This will allow Google to combine two niche advertising media—the Internet and radio—with Google's ability to laser-focus on the tastes of consumers. Google has also begun an experiment in selling advertisements from its advertisers in offline newspapers and magazines, with select advertisements in the Chicago Sun-Times.Gonsalves, Antone. " Google Confirms Testing Ads in Sun-Times Newspaper." Information Week. " January 10, 2006. They have been filling unsold space in the newspaper that would have normally been used for in-house advertisements.

Google was added to the S&P 500 index on March 30, 2006. Google replaced Burlington Resources, a major oil producer based in Houston which was acquired by ConocoPhillips.

Philanthropy In 2004, Google formed a non-profit philanthropic wing, Google.org, giving it a starting fund of $1 billion." About the Foundation." Google.org. Retrieved on October 11, 2007. The express mission of the organization is to help with the issues of climate change (see also global warming), global public health, and global poverty. Among its first projects is to develop a viable plug-in hybrid electric vehicle that can attain 100 fuel economy in automobiles. The current director is Dr. Larry Brilliant.Hafner, Katie. " Philanthropy Google’s Way: Not the Usual." New York Times. September 14, 2006. Retrieved on October 11, 2007.

Acquisitions Since 2001, Google has acquired several small start-up companies, often consisting of innovative teams and products. One of the earlier companies that Google bought was Pyra Labs. They were the creators of Blogger (service), a weblog publishing platform, first launched in 1999. This acquisition led to many premium features becoming free. Pyra Labs was originally formed by Evan Williams (blogger), yet he left Google in 2004. In early 2006, Google acquired Upstartle, a company responsible for the online word processor, Writely. The technology in this product was used by Google to eventually create Google Docs & Spreadsheets.

In February 2006, software company Adaptive Path sold Measure Map, a weblog statistics application, to Google. Registration to the service has since been temporarily disabled. The last update regarding the future of Measure Map was made on April 6, 2006 and outlined many of the service's known issues." Measure Map Forum - Known issues." Google Groups. April 6, 2006. Retrieved on September 10 2007.

In late 2006, Google bought online video site YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock.La Monica, Paul R. " Google to buy YouTube for $1.65 billion." CNN. October 9, 2006. Retrieved on October 9 2006. Shortly after, on October 31, 2006, Google announced that it had also acquired JotSpot, a developer of wiki technology for collaborative Web sites. Google Buys Wiki Startup JotSpot. October 31, 2006.

On April 13, 2007, Google reached an agreement to acquire DoubleClick. Google agreed to buy the company for $3.1 billion. Louise Stort and Miguel Helft. " Google Buys DoubleClick for $3.1 Billion." The New York Times. April 13, 2007. Retrieved on April 13, 2007.

On July 9, 2007, Google announced that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire enterprise messaging security and compliance company Postini.

Partnerships In 2005, Google entered into partnerships with other companies and government agencies to improve production and services. Google announced a partnership with NASA Ames Research Center to build up of offices and work on research projects involving large-scale data management, nanotechnology, distributed computing, and the entrepreneurial space industry.Mills, Elinor. " Can Google beat the new-office curse?" CNET. September 28, 2005. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. Google also entered into a partnership with Sun Microsystems in October to help share and distribute each other's technologies.Kessler, Michelle; Acohido, Byron. " Google, Sun make 'big deal' together." USA Today. October 3, 2005. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. The company entered into a partnership with Time Warner AOL,Mills, Elinor. " What the Google-AOL deal means for users." CNET. December 28, 2005. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. to enhance each other's video search services.

Also in 2005, the company became a major financial investor of the new .mobi top-level domain for mobile devices, in conjunction with several other companies, including Microsoft, Nokia, Ericcson, and others." dotMobi Investors." .mobi. Retrieved on October 14, 2007. In September of 2007, Google launched, "Adsense for Mobile", a service to its publishing partners providing the ability to monetize their mobile websites through the targeted placement of mobile text ads," Google AdSense for Mobile unlocks the potential of the mobile advertising market." Google. September 17, 2007. Retrieved on October 14, 2007. and acquired the mobile social networking site, Zingku.mobi, to "provide people worldwide with direct access to Google applications, and ultimately the information they want and need, right from their mobile devices."Niccolai, James. " Google Buys Mobile Social Network Zingku." PC World. September 29, 2007. Retrieved on October 14, 2007.

In 2006, Google and News Corporation's Fox Interactive Media entered into a $900 million agreement to provide search and advertising on the popular social networking site, MySpace.Staff Writer. " Fox Interactive Media Enters into Landmark Agreement with Google Inc.; Multi-Year Pact Calls for Google to Provide Search and Advertising across Fox Interactive Media's Growing Online Network Including the MySpace Community." Business Wire. August 7, 2006. Retrieved on February 25, 2007.

Products Google has created services and tools for the general public and business environment alike; including Web applications, advertising networks and solutions for businesses.

Advertising Most of Google's revenue is derived from advertising programs. For the 2006 fiscal year, the company reported $10.492 billion in total advertising revenues and only $112 million in licensing and other revenues. Google AdWords allows Web advertisers to display advertisements in Google's search results and the Google Content Network, through either a cost-per-click or cost-per-view scheme. Google AdSense website owners can also display adverts on their own site, and earn money every time ads are clicked.

Applications Google is well-known for its Google search service, which is a major factor of the company's success. As of December 2006, Google is the most used search engine on the web with a 50.8% market share, ahead of Yahoo! (23.6%) and Live Search (8.4%).Bausch, Suzy. " Nielsen//NetRatings Announces December U.S. Search Share Rankings." Market Wire. January 23, 2007. Retrieved on February 23, 2007. Google indexes billions of Web pages, so that users can search for the information they desire, through the use of keyword (Internet search) and operators. Google has also employed the Web Search technology into other search services, including Image Search, Google News, the price comparison site Google Product Search, the interactive Usenet archive Google Groups, Google Maps and more.

In 2004, Google launched its own free web-based email service, known as Gmail.Staff Writer. " Google + e-mail = gmail." CNN. August 1, 2004. Retrieved on February 23, 2007. Gmail features E-mail filtering and the capability to use Google technology to search email. The service generates revenue by displaying advertisements from the AdWords service that are tailored to the content of the email messages displayed on screen.

In early 2006, the company launched Google Video, which not only allows users to search and view freely available videos but also offers users and media publishers the ability to publish their content, including television shows on CBS, NBA basketball games, and music videos.Tyler, Nathan. " Google to Launch Video Marketplace." Google. January 6, 2006. Retrieved on February 23, 2007. In August 2007, Google announced that it would shut down its video rental and sale program and offer refunds and Google Checkout credits to consumers who had purchased videos to own.

Google has also developed several desktop applications, including Google Earth, an interactive mapping program powered by satellite and aerial imagery that covers the vast majority of the planet. Google Earth is generally considered to be remarkably accurate and extremely detailed. Many major cities have such detailed images that one can zoom in close enough to see vehicles and pedestrians clearly. Consequently, there have been some concerns about national security implications. Specifically, some countries and militaries contend the software can be used to pinpoint with near-precision accuracy the physical location of critical infrastructure, commercial and residential buildings, bases, government agencies, and so on. However, the satellite images are not necessarily frequently updated, and all of them are available at no charge through other products and even government sources (NASA and the NGA, for example.) Some counter this argument by stating that Google Earth makes it easier to access and research the images.

Many other products are available through Google Labs, which is a collection of incomplete applications that are still being tested for use by the general public.

Google has promoted their products in various ways. In London, Google Space was set-up in Heathrow Airport, showcasing several products, including Gmail, Google Earth and Picasa." Googlespace Website." Google. Retrieved on February 26, 2007.Donoghue, Andrew. " Google turns Heathrow into testing lab." ZDNet. November 24, 2005. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. Also, a similar page was launched for American college students, under the name College Life, Powered by Google." College Life, Powered by Google Website." Retrieved on February 25, 2007.

In 2007, some reports surfaced that Google was planning the release of its own mobile phone, possibly a competitor to Apple Inc.'s iPhone.Orlowski, Andrew. " Google Phone - it's for real." The Register. March 16, 2007. Retrieved on April 1, 2007.Smith, David. " The future for Orange could soon be Google in your pocket." The Guardian. December 17, 2006. Retrieved on April 1 2007.Ricker, Thomas. " The Google Switch: an iPhone killer?." Engadget. January 18, 2007. Retrieved on April 1, 2007. The project may be a collaboration between Google and Orange SA, High Tech Computer, Samsung, or another manufacturer. However, very little is known about the project and most of the information available is speculation. In October 2007, Google SMS service is launched in India allowing users to get business listings, movie showtimes and information by sending an SMS message.{{cite news| url = http://www.andhranews.net/India/2007/October/9-Google-SMS-Launches-18495.asp| title = Google SMS Launches in India-->

Enterprise products In 2007, Google launched Google Apps, a version of Google Apps targeted primarily at the business user. It includes such extras as more disk space for e-mail, API access, and premium support, for a price of USD50 per user per year. A large implementation of Google Apps with 38,000 users is at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada.Rickwood, Lee. " Google Apps: Killer software or killer decision?." PCWorld.ca. March 23, 2007. Retrieved on March 25, 2007.

Platform Google's services are run on several server farms, each consisting of thousands of low-cost commodity computers running stripped-down versions of Linux. While the company does not provide detailed information about its hardware, a 2006 estimate consisted of over 450,000 servers, racked up in clusters located in data centers around the world.Carr, David F. " How Google Works." Baseline Magazine. July 6, 2006. Retrieved on July 10, 2006.

Corporate affairs and culture seen in the Googleplex parking lot.Google is particularly known for its relaxed corporate culture, reminiscent of the Dot-com boom. In January 2007, it was cited by Fortune Magazine as the #1 (of 100) best company to work for." 100 Best Companies to Work For 2007." Fortune Magazine (link published by CNN). January 22, 2007. Retrieved on January 8, 2007. Google's corporate philosophy is based on many casual principles including, "You can make money without doing evil", "You can be serious without a suit," and "Work should be challenging and the challenge should be fun." A complete list of corporate fundamentals is available on Google's website." Google Corporate Philosophy." Google. Retrieved on August 31, 2006. Google's relaxed corporate culture can also be seen externally through their holiday variations of the Google logo.

Google has been criticized for having salaries below industry standards" Google Employee Salaries Data Survey --Retrieved from mydanwei.org. For example, some system administrators earn no more than $35,000 per year – considered to be quite low for the San Francisco Bay Area job market.Penenberg, Adam L. " Why Google Is Like Wal-Mart." Wired. April 21, 2005. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. However, Google's stock performance following its Initial public offering has enabled many early employees to be competitively compensated by participation in the corporation's remarkable equity growth.Shinal, John. " Google IPO achieved its major goal: It's all about raising cash for the company and rewarding employees, early investors." San Francisco Chronicle. August 22, 2004. Retrieved on February 25 2007. Google implemented other employee incentives in 2005, such as the Google Founders' Award, in addition to offering higher salaries to new employees. Google's workplace amenities, culture, global popularity, and strong brand recognition have also attracted potential applicants.

After the company's IPO in August 2004, it was reported that founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, and CEO Eric E. Schmidt, requested that their base salary be cut to $1.00.La Monica, Paul R. " Google leaders stick with $1 salary." CNN. March 31, 2006. Retrieved on February 28, 2007. Subsequent offers by the company to increase their salaries have been turned down, primarily because, "their primary compensation continues to come from returns on their ownership stakes in Google. As significant stockholders, their personal wealth is tied directly to sustained stock price appreciation and performance, which provides direct alignment with stockholder interests." Prior to 2004, Schmidt was making $250,000 per year, and Page and Brin each earned a salary of $150,000.

They have all declined recent offers of bonuses and increases in compensation by Google's board of directors. In a 2007 report of the United States' richest people, Forbes reported that Sergey Brin and Larry Page were tied for #5 with a net worth of $18.5 billion each." The 400 Richest Americans." Forbes. September 20, 2007. Retrieved on September 22, 2007.

Googleplex As a play on Google's name, its headquarters, in Mountain View, California, is referred to as "the Googleplex" — a googolplex being 1 followed by a googol of zeros, and the HQ being a complex of buildings (cf. movie theater, cineplex, etc). The lobby is decorated with a piano, lava lamps, old server clusters, and a projection of search queries on the wall. The hallways are full of exercise balls and bicycles. Each employee has access to the corporate recreation center. Recreational amenities are scattered throughout the campus and include a workout room with weights and rowing machines, locker rooms, washers and dryers, a massage room, assorted video games, Foosball, a piano, a pool table, and ping pong. In addition to the Recreation room, there are snack rooms stocked with various cereals, gummy bears, toffee, licorice, cashews, yogurt, carrots, fresh fruit, and dozens of different drinks including fresh juice, soft drink, and make your own cappuccino.

In 2006, Google moved into of office space in New York City, at 111 Eighth Avenue in Manhattan.Reardon, Marguerite. " Google takes a bigger bite of Big Apple." c net. October 2, 2006. Retrieved on October 9, 2006. The office was specially designed and built for Google and houses its largest advertising sales team, which has been instrumental in securing large partnerships, most recently deals with MySpace and AOL. In 2003, they added an engineering staff in New York City, which has been responsible for more than 100 engineering projects, including Google Maps, Google Spreadsheets, and others. It is estimated that the building costs Google $10 million per year to rent and is similar in design and functionality to its Mountain View, California headquarters, including Foosball, air hockey, and ping-pong tables, as well as a video game area.

The size of Google's search system is presently unknown; the best estimates place the total number of the companies servers at 450,000, spread over twenty five locations throughout the world, including major network operations center in Ireland and Atlanta, Georgia. Google is also in the process of constructing a major operations center in The Dalles, Oregon, on the banks of the Columbia River. The site, also referred to by the media as Project 02, was chosen due to the availability of inexpensive hydroelectric power and a large surplus of fiber optic cable, left over from the dot com boom of the late 1990s. The computing center is estimated to be as large as two American football, and it has created hundreds of construction jobs, causing local real estate prices to increase 40%. Upon completion, the center is expected to create 60 to 200 permanent jobs in the town of 12,000 people.Markoff, John; Hansell, Saul. " Hiding in Plain Sight, Google Seeks More Power." New York Times. June 14, 2006. Retrieved on October 13, 2007.

Google is also making steps to ensure that their operations are environmentally sound. In October 2006, the company announced plans to install thousands of Photovoltaic modules to provide up to 1.6 megawatts of electricity, enough to satisfy approximately 30% of the campus' energy needs.Richmond, Riva. " Google plans to build huge solar energy system for headquarters." MarketWatch. October 17, 2006. Retrieved on October 17, 2006. The system will be the largest solar power system constructed on a United States corporate campus and one of the largest on any corporate site in the world. In June 2007, Google announced that they plan to become carbon neutral by 2008, which includes investing in energy efficiency, renewable energy sources, and purchasing carbon offsets, such as investing in projects like capturing and burning methane from animal waste at Mexican and Brazilian farms.Staff Writer. " Google To Go Carbon Neutral By 2008." Environmental Leader. June 19, 2007. Retrieved on July 10, 2007.

"Twenty percent" time All Google engineers are encouraged to spend 20% of their work time (one day per week) on projects that interest them. Some of Google's newer services, such as Gmail, Google News, Orkut, and AdSense originated from these independent endeavors." What's it like to work in Engineering, Operations, & IT?." Google. Retrieved on August 2, 2006. In a talk at Stanford University, Marissa Mayer, Google's Vice President of Search Products and User Experience, stated that her analysis showed that half of the new product launches originated from the 20% time.Mayer, Marissa. " MS&E 472 Course: Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Seminar Series." (video link; an audio podcast is also available in MP3 format). ETL Seminar Series/Stanford University. May 17, 2006. Retrieved on August 2, 2006.

Easter eggs and April Fool's Day jokes Google has a tradition of creating April Fool's Day jokes — such as Google's hoaxes#2000: Google MentalPlex, which allegedly featured the use of mental power to search the web." Google MentalPlex." Google. April 1, 2000. Retrieved on February 22, 2007. In 2002, they claimed that pigeons were the Google's hoaxes#2002: Pigeon Rank behind their growing search engine." The technology behind Google's great results." Google. April 1, 2002. Retrieved on February 22, 2007. In 2004, they featured Google's hoaxes#2004: Google Lunar/Copernicus Center (which claimed to feature jobs on the moon)," Google Copernicus Center is hiring." Google. April 1, 2004. Retrieved on February 22, 2007. and in 2005, a fiction brain-boosting drink, termed Google's hoaxes#2005: Google Gulp was announced." Quench your thirst for knowledge." Google. April 1, 2005. Retrieved on February 22, 2007. In 2006, they came up with Google's hoaxes#2006: Google Romance, a hypothetical online dating service.Fox, Lynn. " Google to Organize World's Courtship Information with Google Romance." Google. April 1, 2006. Retrieved on February 22, 2007. In 2007, Google announced two joke products. The first was a free wireless Internet service called TiSP (Toilet Internet Service Provider) " Welcome to Google TiSP." Google. April 1, 2007. Retrieved on April 1, 2007. in which one obtained a connection by flushing one end of a fiber-optic cable down their toilet and waiting only an hour for a "Plumbing Hardware Dispatcher (PHD)" to connect it to the Internet. Additionally, Google's Gmail page displayed an announcement for Gmail Paper, which allows users of their free email service to have email messages printed and shipped to a snail mail address." Gmail Paper." Google. April 1, 2007. Retrieved on April 1, 2007.

Some thought the announcement of Gmail in 2004 around April Fool's Day (as well as the doubling of Gmail's storage space to two gigabytes in 2005) was a joke, although both of these turned out to be genuine announcements. In 2005, a comedic graph depicting Google's goal of "infinity plus one" GB of storage was featured on the Gmail homepage.

Google's services contain a number of Easter egg (virtual); for instance, the Language Tools page offers the search interface in the Swedish Chef's "Bork bork bork," Pig Latin, ”Hacker” (actually leetspeak), Elmer Fudd, and Klingon language." Language Tools." Google. Retrieved on January 24, 2007. In addition, the search engine calculator provides the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything from Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." Google Search Results for 'answer to life the universe and everything'." Google. Retrieved on January 24, 2007. As Google's search box can be used as a unit converter (as well as a calculator), some non-standard units are built in, such as the Smoot. Google also routinely modifies its logo in accordance with various holidays or special events throughout the year, such as Christmas, Mother's Day, or various birthdays of notable individuals." Holiday logos." Google. Retrieved on May 21, 2007.

IPO and culture Many people speculated that Google's initial public offering would inevitably lead to changes in the company's culture,Associated Press. " Quirky Google Culture Endangered?" Wired Magazine. April 28, 2004. because of shareholder pressure for employee benefit reductions and short-term advances, or because a large number of the company's employees would suddenly become millionaires on paper. In a report given to potential investors, co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page promised that the IPO would not change the company's culture.Baertlein, Lisa. " Google IPO at $2.7 billion." CIOL IT Unlimited. April 30, 2004. Later Mr. Page said, "We think a lot about how to maintain our culture and the fun elements. We spent a lot of time getting our offices right. We think it's important to have a high density of people. People are packed together everywhere. We all share offices. We like this set of buildings because it's more like a densely packed university campus than a typical suburban office park."Vise, David A. " {{Infobox_Company| company_name = Google Inc.| company_logo = | company_type = public company (), ()| foundation = Menlo Park, California (September 7 1998)]| location_country = USA| key_people = Eric E. Schmidt, CEO/Director
Sergey Brin, Co-Founder, Technology President
Lawrence E. Page, Co-Founder, Products President
George Reyes, CFO], Computer software| revenue = 10.604 Billion [U.S. Dollar (2006)| net_income = 3.077 Billion U.S. dollar (2006)| num_employees = 15,916 (October 18 2007)]| homepage = www.google.com-->Google Inc. ( and ) is an United States public company, specializing in Internet search and online advertising. The company is based in Mountain View, California, and has 15,916 full-time employees (as of October 18 2007)." Google Announces Second Quarter 2007 Results." July 19, 2007. Retrieved on August 22, 2007. Google's mission statement is, "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."" Google Corporate Information: Company Overview." Google. Retrieved on January 6, 2007. Google's corporate philosophy includes statements such as "Don't be evil", and "Work should be challenging and the challenge should be fun", illustrating a somewhat relaxed corporate culture.

Google was co-founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were students at Stanford University and the company was first incorporated as a privately held company on September 7, 1998. Google's initial public offering took place on August 19, 2004, raising United States Dollar1.67 billion, making it worth $23 billion. Through a series of new product developments, acquisitions and partnerships, the company has expanded its initial search and advertising business into other areas, including web-based email, online mapping, office productivity, and video sharing, among others.

History Google began as a research project in January 1996 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two Doctor of Philosophy students at Stanford University, California." Corporate Information: Google Milestones." Google. Retrieved on February 23, 2007. They hypothesized that a search engine that analyzed the relationships between websites would produce better results than existing techniques, which ranked results according to the number of times the search term appeared on a page.Page, Lawrence; Brin, Sergey; Motwani, Rajeev; Winograd, Terry. " The PageRank Citation Ranking: Bringing Order to the Web." November 11, 1999. Their search engine was originally nicknamed "BackRub" because the system checked backlinks to estimate a site's importance.Battelle, John. " The Birth of Google." Wired Magazine. August, 2005. A small search engine called Rankdex was already exploring a similar strategy.Li, Yanhong. " Toward a qualitative search engine." Internet Computing, IEEE. 2 (4), July-August, 1998, 24-29.Convinced that the pages with the most links to them from other highly relevant web pages must be the most relevant pages associated with the search, Page and Brin tested their thesis as part of their studies, and laid the foundation for their search engine. Originally the search engine used the Stanford University website with the domain google.stanford.edu. The domain google.com was registered on September 15, 1997, and the company was incorporated as Google Inc. on September 7, 1998 at a friend's garage in Menlo Park, California. The total initial investment raised for the new company eventually amounted to almost $1.1 million, including a $100,000 check by Andy Bechtolsheim, one of the founders of Sun Microsystems.Google. " Google Milestones." Retrieved on July 12, 2006.

In March 1998, the company moved into offices in Palo Alto, California, home to several other noted Silicon Valley technology startups.Fried, Ian. " A building blessed with tech success." CNET. October 4, 2002. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. After quickly outgrowing two other sites, the company leased a complex of buildings in Mountain View, Santa Clara County, California at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway from Silicon Graphics (SGI) in 2003.Olsen, Stefanie. " Google's movin' on up." CNET. July 11, 2003. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. The company has remained at this location ever since, and the complex has since become known as the Googleplex (a play on the word googolplex, a 1 followed by a googol zeros). In 2006, Google bought the property from SGI for $319 million.Staff Writer. " Google to buy headquarters building from Silicon Graphics." Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal. June 16, 2006. Retrieved on February 25, 2007.

The Google search engine attracted a loyal following among the growing number of Internet users, who liked its simple design and usability.Thompson, Bill. " Is Google good for you?" BBC News. December 19 2003. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. In 2000, Google began selling advertising associated with search keyword (internet search). The ads were text-based to maintain an uncluttered page design and to maximize page loading speed. Keywords were sold based on a combination of price bid and clickthroughs, with bidding starting at $.05 per click. This model of selling keyword advertising was pioneered by Yahoo! Search Marketing (later renamed Overture Services, before being acquired by Yahoo! and rebranded as Yahoo! Search Marketing).Sullivan, Danny. " GoTo Going Strong." The Search Engine Report. July 1 1998.Pelline, Jeff. " Pay-for-placement gets another shot." CNET. February 19, 1998.Glaser, Ken. "Who Will GoTo.com?" OnlinePress.com. February 20, 1998. While many of its dot-com rivals failed in the new Internet marketplace, Google quietly rose in stature while generating revenue.

The name "Google" originated from a misspelling of "googol,"Koller, David. " Origin of the name, "Google." Stanford University. January, 2004.Hanley, Rachael. " From Googol to Google: Co-founder returns." The Stanford Daily. February 12, 2003. Retrieved on July 14, 2006. which refers to 10100 (the number represented by a 1 followed by one-hundred zeros). Having found its way increasingly into everyday language, the verb "Google (verb)", was added to the Merriam-Webster and the Oxford English Dictionary in 2006, meaning "to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet."Harris, Scott D. " Dictionary adds verb: to google." San Jose Mercury News. July 7, 2006. Retrieved on July 7 2006.Bylund, Anders. " To Google or Not to Google." The Motley Fool via MSNBC. July 5, 2006. Retrieved on July 7, 2006.

A patent describing part of Google's ranking mechanism (PageRank) was granted on September 4, 2001.Page, Lawrence. " Method for node ranking in a linked database." European Patent Organisation. September 4, 2001. Retrieved on February 25 2007. The patent was officially assigned to Stanford University and lists Lawrence Page as the inventor.

Financing and initial public offering The first funding for Google as a company was secured in the form of a United States dollar100,000 contribution from Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, given to a corporation which did not yet exist.Kopytoff, Verne; Fost, Dan. " For early Googlers, key word is $$$." San Francisco Chronicle. April 29, 2004. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. Around six months later, a much larger round of funding was announced, with the major investors being rival venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital.

Google's initial public offering took place on August 19, 2004. 19,605,052 stock were offered at a price of $85 per share.Elgin, Ben. " Google: Whiz Kids or Naughty Boys?" Business Week. August 19, 2004. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. Of that, 14,142,135 (another mathematical reference as square root of two ≈ 1.4142135) were floated by Google and 5,462,917 by selling stockholders. The sale raised $1.67 billion, and gave Google a market capitalization of more than $23 billion.Webb, Cynthia L. " Google's IPO: Grate Expectations." Washington Post. August 19, 2004. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. The vast majority of Google's 271 million shares remained under Google's control. Many of Google's employees became instant paper millionaires. Yahoo!, a competitor of Google, also benefited from the IPO because it owned 8.4 million shares of Google as of August 9, 2004, ten days before the IPO.Kuchinskas, Susan. " Yahoo and Google Settle." internetnews.com. August 9, 2004. Retrieved on February 25, 2007.

Google's post-IPO stock performance has been very good as well, with shares surging to $500 by 2007, due to strong sales and earnings in the advertising market, as well as the release of new features like the Google Desktop and personalized home page.La Monica, Paul R. " Bowling for Google." CNN. May 25, 2005. Retrieved on February 28 2007. The surge in stock price is fueled primarily by individual investors, as opposed to large institutional investors and mutual funds.

The company is listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the ticker symbol GOOG.

Growth While the company's primary market is in the web content arena, Google has begun to experiment with other markets, such as radio and print publications. On January 17, 2006, Google announced that it had purchased the radio advertising company dMarc, which provides an automated system that allows companies to advertise on the radio.Levingston, Steven. " Google Buys Company To Expand Into Radio." Washington Post. January 18, 2006. This will allow Google to combine two niche advertising media—the Internet and radio—with Google's ability to laser-focus on the tastes of consumers. Google has also begun an experiment in selling advertisements from its advertisers in offline newspapers and magazines, with select advertisements in the Chicago Sun-Times.Gonsalves, Antone. " Google Confirms Testing Ads in Sun-Times Newspaper." Information Week. " January 10, 2006. They have been filling unsold space in the newspaper that would have normally been used for in-house advertisements.

Google was added to the S&P 500 index on March 30, 2006. Google replaced Burlington Resources, a major oil producer based in Houston which was acquired by ConocoPhillips.

Philanthropy In 2004, Google formed a non-profit philanthropic wing, Google.org, giving it a starting fund of $1 billion." About the Foundation." Google.org. Retrieved on October 11, 2007. The express mission of the organization is to help with the issues of climate change (see also global warming), global public health, and global poverty. Among its first projects is to develop a viable plug-in hybrid electric vehicle that can attain 100 fuel economy in automobiles. The current director is Dr. Larry Brilliant.Hafner, Katie. " Philanthropy Google’s Way: Not the Usual." New York Times. September 14, 2006. Retrieved on October 11, 2007.

Acquisitions Since 2001, Google has acquired several small start-up companies, often consisting of innovative teams and products. One of the earlier companies that Google bought was Pyra Labs. They were the creators of Blogger (service), a weblog publishing platform, first launched in 1999. This acquisition led to many premium features becoming free. Pyra Labs was originally formed by Evan Williams (blogger), yet he left Google in 2004. In early 2006, Google acquired Upstartle, a company responsible for the online word processor, Writely. The technology in this product was used by Google to eventually create Google Docs & Spreadsheets.

In February 2006, software company Adaptive Path sold Measure Map, a weblog statistics application, to Google. Registration to the service has since been temporarily disabled. The last update regarding the future of Measure Map was made on April 6, 2006 and outlined many of the service's known issues." Measure Map Forum - Known issues." Google Groups. April 6, 2006. Retrieved on September 10 2007.

In late 2006, Google bought online video site YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock.La Monica, Paul R. " Google to buy YouTube for $1.65 billion." CNN. October 9, 2006. Retrieved on October 9 2006. Shortly after, on October 31, 2006, Google announced that it had also acquired JotSpot, a developer of wiki technology for collaborative Web sites. Google Buys Wiki Startup JotSpot. October 31, 2006.

On April 13, 2007, Google reached an agreement to acquire DoubleClick. Google agreed to buy the company for $3.1 billion. Louise Stort and Miguel Helft. " Google Buys DoubleClick for $3.1 Billion." The New York Times. April 13, 2007. Retrieved on April 13, 2007.

On July 9, 2007, Google announced that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire enterprise messaging security and compliance company Postini.

Partnerships In 2005, Google entered into partnerships with other companies and government agencies to improve production and services. Google announced a partnership with NASA Ames Research Center to build up of offices and work on research projects involving large-scale data management, nanotechnology, distributed computing, and the entrepreneurial space industry.Mills, Elinor. " Can Google beat the new-office curse?" CNET. September 28, 2005. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. Google also entered into a partnership with Sun Microsystems in October to help share and distribute each other's technologies.Kessler, Michelle; Acohido, Byron. " Google, Sun make 'big deal' together." USA Today. October 3, 2005. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. The company entered into a partnership with Time Warner AOL,Mills, Elinor. " What the Google-AOL deal means for users." CNET. December 28, 2005. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. to enhance each other's video search services.

Also in 2005, the company became a major financial investor of the new .mobi top-level domain for mobile devices, in conjunction with several other companies, including Microsoft, Nokia, Ericcson, and others." dotMobi Investors." .mobi. Retrieved on October 14, 2007. In September of 2007, Google launched, "Adsense for Mobile", a service to its publishing partners providing the ability to monetize their mobile websites through the targeted placement of mobile text ads," Google AdSense for Mobile unlocks the potential of the mobile advertising market." Google. September 17, 2007. Retrieved on October 14, 2007. and acquired the mobile social networking site, Zingku.mobi, to "provide people worldwide with direct access to Google applications, and ultimately the information they want and need, right from their mobile devices."Niccolai, James. " Google Buys Mobile Social Network Zingku." PC World. September 29, 2007. Retrieved on October 14, 2007.

In 2006, Google and News Corporation's Fox Interactive Media entered into a $900 million agreement to provide search and advertising on the popular social networking site, MySpace.Staff Writer. " Fox Interactive Media Enters into Landmark Agreement with Google Inc.; Multi-Year Pact Calls for Google to Provide Search and Advertising across Fox Interactive Media's Growing Online Network Including the MySpace Community." Business Wire. August 7, 2006. Retrieved on February 25, 2007.

Products Google has created services and tools for the general public and business environment alike; including Web applications, advertising networks and solutions for businesses.

Advertising Most of Google's revenue is derived from advertising programs. For the 2006 fiscal year, the company reported $10.492 billion in total advertising revenues and only $112 million in licensing and other revenues. Google AdWords allows Web advertisers to display advertisements in Google's search results and the Google Content Network, through either a cost-per-click or cost-per-view scheme. Google AdSense website owners can also display adverts on their own site, and earn money every time ads are clicked.

Applications Google is well-known for its Google search service, which is a major factor of the company's success. As of December 2006, Google is the most used search engine on the web with a 50.8% market share, ahead of Yahoo! (23.6%) and Live Search (8.4%).Bausch, Suzy. " Nielsen//NetRatings Announces December U.S. Search Share Rankings." Market Wire. January 23, 2007. Retrieved on February 23, 2007. Google indexes billions of Web pages, so that users can search for the information they desire, through the use of keyword (Internet search) and operators. Google has also employed the Web Search technology into other search services, including Image Search, Google News, the price comparison site Google Product Search, the interactive Usenet archive Google Groups, Google Maps and more.

In 2004, Google launched its own free web-based email service, known as Gmail.Staff Writer. " Google + e-mail = gmail." CNN. August 1, 2004. Retrieved on February 23, 2007. Gmail features E-mail filtering and the capability to use Google technology to search email. The service generates revenue by displaying advertisements from the AdWords service that are tailored to the content of the email messages displayed on screen.

In early 2006, the company launched Google Video, which not only allows users to search and view freely available videos but also offers users and media publishers the ability to publish their content, including television shows on CBS, NBA basketball games, and music videos.Tyler, Nathan. " Google to Launch Video Marketplace." Google. January 6, 2006. Retrieved on February 23, 2007. In August 2007, Google announced that it would shut down its video rental and sale program and offer refunds and Google Checkout credits to consumers who had purchased videos to own.

Google has also developed several desktop applications, including Google Earth, an interactive mapping program powered by satellite and aerial imagery that covers the vast majority of the planet. Google Earth is generally considered to be remarkably accurate and extremely detailed. Many major cities have such detailed images that one can zoom in close enough to see vehicles and pedestrians clearly. Consequently, there have been some concerns about national security implications. Specifically, some countries and militaries contend the software can be used to pinpoint with near-precision accuracy the physical location of critical infrastructure, commercial and residential buildings, bases, government agencies, and so on. However, the satellite images are not necessarily frequently updated, and all of them are available at no charge through other products and even government sources (NASA and the NGA, for example.) Some counter this argument by stating that Google Earth makes it easier to access and research the images.

Many other products are available through Google Labs, which is a collection of incomplete applications that are still being tested for use by the general public.

Google has promoted their products in various ways. In London, Google Space was set-up in Heathrow Airport, showcasing several products, including Gmail, Google Earth and Picasa." Googlespace Website." Google. Retrieved on February 26, 2007.Donoghue, Andrew. " Google turns Heathrow into testing lab." ZDNet. November 24, 2005. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. Also, a similar page was launched for American college students, under the name College Life, Powered by Google." College Life, Powered by Google Website." Retrieved on February 25, 2007.

In 2007, some reports surfaced that Google was planning the release of its own mobile phone, possibly a competitor to Apple Inc.'s iPhone.Orlowski, Andrew. " Google Phone - it's for real." The Register. March 16, 2007. Retrieved on April 1, 2007.Smith, David. " The future for Orange could soon be Google in your pocket." The Guardian. December 17, 2006. Retrieved on April 1 2007.Ricker, Thomas. " The Google Switch: an iPhone killer?." Engadget. January 18, 2007. Retrieved on April 1, 2007. The project may be a collaboration between Google and Orange SA, High Tech Computer, Samsung, or another manufacturer. However, very little is known about the project and most of the information available is speculation. In October 2007, Google SMS service is launched in India allowing users to get business listings, movie showtimes and information by sending an SMS message.{{cite news| url = http://www.andhranews.net/India/2007/October/9-Google-SMS-Launches-18495.asp| title = Google SMS Launches in India-->

Enterprise products In 2007, Google launched Google Apps, a version of Google Apps targeted primarily at the business user. It includes such extras as more disk space for e-mail, API access, and premium support, for a price of USD50 per user per year. A large implementation of Google Apps with 38,000 users is at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada.Rickwood, Lee. " Google Apps: Killer software or killer decision?." PCWorld.ca. March 23, 2007. Retrieved on March 25, 2007.

Platform Google's services are run on several server farms, each consisting of thousands of low-cost commodity computers running stripped-down versions of Linux. While the company does not provide detailed information about its hardware, a 2006 estimate consisted of over 450,000 servers, racked up in clusters located in data centers around the world.Carr, David F. " How Google Works." Baseline Magazine. July 6, 2006. Retrieved on July 10, 2006.

Corporate affairs and culture seen in the Googleplex parking lot.Google is particularly known for its relaxed corporate culture, reminiscent of the Dot-com boom. In January 2007, it was cited by Fortune Magazine as the #1 (of 100) best company to work for." 100 Best Companies to Work For 2007." Fortune Magazine (link published by CNN). January 22, 2007. Retrieved on January 8, 2007. Google's corporate philosophy is based on many casual principles including, "You can make money without doing evil", "You can be serious without a suit," and "Work should be challenging and the challenge should be fun." A complete list of corporate fundamentals is available on Google's website." Google Corporate Philosophy." Google. Retrieved on August 31, 2006. Google's relaxed corporate culture can also be seen externally through their holiday variations of the Google logo.

Google has been criticized for having salaries below industry standards" Google Employee Salaries Data Survey --Retrieved from mydanwei.org. For example, some system administrators earn no more than $35,000 per year – considered to be quite low for the San Francisco Bay Area job market.Penenberg, Adam L. " Why Google Is Like Wal-Mart." Wired. April 21, 2005. Retrieved on February 25, 2007. However, Google's stock performance following its Initial public offering has enabled many early employees to be competitively compensated by participation in the corporation's remarkable equity growth.Shinal, John. " Google IPO achieved its major goal: It's all about raising cash for the company and rewarding employees, early investors." San Francisco Chronicle. August 22, 2004. Retrieved on February 25 2007. Google implemented other employee incentives in 2005, such as the Google Founders' Award, in addition to offering higher salaries to new employees. Google's workplace amenities, culture, global popularity, and strong brand recognition have also attracted potential applicants.

After the company's IPO in August 2004, it was reported that founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, and CEO Eric E. Schmidt, requested that their base salary be cut to $1.00.La Monica, Paul R. " Google leaders stick with $1 salary." CNN. March 31, 2006. Retrieved on February 28, 2007. Subsequent offers by the company to increase their salaries have been turned down, primarily because, "their primary compensation continues to come from returns on their ownership stakes in Google. As significant stockholders, their personal wealth is tied directly to sustained stock price appreciation and performance, which provides direct alignment with stockholder interests." Prior to 2004, Schmidt was making $250,000 per year, and Page and Brin each earned a salary of $150,000.

They have all declined recent offers of bonuses and increases in compensation by Google's board of directors. In a 2007 report of the United States' richest people, Forbes reported that Sergey Brin and Larry Page were tied for #5 with a net worth of $18.5 billion each." The 400 Richest Americans." Forbes. September 20, 2007. Retrieved on September 22, 2007.

Googleplex As a play on Google's name, its headquarters, in Mountain View, California, is referred to as "the Googleplex" — a googolplex being 1 followed by a googol of zeros, and the HQ being a complex of buildings (cf. movie theater, cineplex, etc). The lobby is decorated with a piano, lava lamps, old server clusters, and a projection of search queries on the wall. The hallways are full of exercise balls and bicycles. Each employee has access to the corporate recreation center. Recreational amenities are scattered throughout the campus and include a workout room with weights and rowing machines, locker rooms, washers and dryers, a massage room, assorted video games, Foosball, a piano, a pool table, and ping pong. In addition to the Recreation room, there are snack rooms stocked with various cereals, gummy bears, toffee, licorice, cashews, yogurt, carrots, fresh fruit, and dozens of different drinks including fresh juice, soft drink, and make your own cappuccino.

In 2006, Google moved into of office space in New York City, at 111 Eighth Avenue in Manhattan.Reardon, Marguerite. " Google takes a bigger bite of Big Apple." c net. October 2, 2006. Retrieved on October 9, 2006. The office was specially designed and built for Google and houses its largest advertising sales team, which has been instrumental in securing large partnerships, most recently deals with MySpace and AOL. In 2003, they added an engineering staff in New York City, which has been responsible for more than 100 engineering projects, including Google Maps, Google Spreadsheets, and others. It is estimated that the building costs Google $10 million per year to rent and is similar in design and functionality to its Mountain View, California headquarters, including Foosball, air hockey, and ping-pong tables, as well as a video game area.

The size of Google's search system is presently unknown; the best estimates place the total number of the companies servers at 450,000, spread over twenty five locations throughout the world, including major network operations center in Ireland and Atlanta, Georgia. Google is also in the process of constructing a major operations center in The Dalles, Oregon, on the banks of the Columbia River. The site, also referred to by the media as Project 02, was chosen due to the availability of inexpensive hydroelectric power and a large surplus of fiber optic cable, left over from the dot com boom of the late 1990s. The computing center is estimated to be as large as two American football, and it has created hundreds of construction jobs, causing local real estate prices to increase 40%. Upon completion, the center is expected to create 60 to 200 permanent jobs in the town of 12,000 people.Markoff, John; Hansell, Saul. " Hiding in Plain Sight, Google Seeks More Power." New York Times. June 14, 2006. Retrieved on October 13, 2007.

Google is also making steps to ensure that their operations are environmentally sound. In October 2006, the company announced plans to install thousands of Photovoltaic modules to provide up to 1.6 megawatts of electricity, enough to satisfy approximately 30% of the campus' energy needs.Richmond, Riva. " Google plans to build huge solar energy system for headquarters." MarketWatch. October 17, 2006. Retrieved on October 17, 2006. The system will be the largest solar power system constructed on a United States corporate campus and one of the largest on any corporate site in the world. In June 2007, Google announced that they plan to become carbon neutral by 2008, which includes investing in energy efficiency, renewable energy sources, and purchasing carbon offsets, such as investing in projects like capturing and burning methane from animal waste at Mexican and Brazilian farms.Staff Writer. " Google To Go Carbon Neutral By 2008." Environmental Leader. June 19, 2007. Retrieved on July 10, 2007.

"Twenty percent" time All Google engineers are encouraged to spend 20% of their work time (one day per week) on projects that interest them. Some of Google's newer services, such as Gmail, Google News, Orkut, and AdSense originated from these independent endeavors." What's it like to work in Engineering, Operations, & IT?." Google. Retrieved on August 2, 2006. In a talk at Stanford University, Marissa Mayer, Google's Vice President of Search Products and User Experience, stated that her analysis showed that half of the new product launches originated from the 20% time.Mayer, Marissa. " MS&E 472 Course: Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Seminar Series." (video link; an audio podcast is also available in MP3 format). ETL Seminar Series/Stanford University. May 17, 2006. Retrieved on August 2, 2006.

Easter eggs and April Fool's Day jokes Google has a tradition of creating April Fool's Day jokes — such as Google's hoaxes#2000: Google MentalPlex, which allegedly featured the use of mental power to search the web." Google MentalPlex." Google. April 1, 2000. Retrieved on February 22, 2007. In 2002, they claimed that pigeons were the Google's hoaxes#2002: Pigeon Rank behind their growing search engine." The technology behind Google's great results." Google. April 1, 2002. Retrieved on February 22, 2007. In 2004, they featured Google's hoaxes#2004: Google Lunar/Copernicus Center (which claimed to feature jobs on the moon)," Google Copernicus Center is hiring." Google. April 1, 2004. Retrieved on February 22, 2007. and in 2005, a fiction brain-boosting drink, termed Google's hoaxes#2005: Google Gulp was announced." Quench your thirst for knowledge." Google. April 1, 2005. Retrieved on February 22, 2007. In 2006, they came up with Google's hoaxes#2006: Google Romance, a hypothetical online dating service.Fox, Lynn. " Google to Organize World's Courtship Information with Google Romance." Google. April 1, 2006. Retrieved on February 22, 2007. In 2007, Google announced two joke products. The first was a free wireless Internet service called TiSP (Toilet Internet Service Provider) " Welcome to Google TiSP." Google. April 1, 2007. Retrieved on April 1, 2007. in which one obtained a connection by flushing one end of a fiber-optic cable down their toilet and waiting only an hour for a "Plumbing Hardware Dispatcher (PHD)" to connect it to the Internet. Additionally, Google's Gmail page displayed an announcement for Gmail Paper, which allows users of their free email service to have email messages printed and shipped to a snail mail address." Gmail Paper." Google. April 1, 2007. Retrieved on April 1, 2007.

Some thought the announcement of Gmail in 2004 around April Fool's Day (as well as the doubling of Gmail's storage space to two gigabytes in 2005) was a joke, although both of these turned out to be genuine announcements. In 2005, a comedic graph depicting Google's goal of "infinity plus one" GB of storage was featured on the Gmail homepage.

Google's services contain a number of Easter egg (virtual); for instance, the Language Tools page offers the search interface in the Swedish Chef's "Bork bork bork," Pig Latin, ”Hacker” (actually leetspeak), Elmer Fudd, and Klingon language." Language Tools." Google. Retrieved on January 24, 2007. In addition, the search engine calculator provides the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything from Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." Google Search Results for 'answer to life the universe and everything'." Google. Retrieved on January 24, 2007. As Google's search box can be used as a unit converter (as well as a calculator), some non-standard units are built in, such as the Smoot. Google also routinely modifies its logo in accordance with various holidays or special events throughout the year, such as Christmas, Mother's Day, or various birthdays of notable individuals." Holiday logos." Google. Retrieved on May 21, 2007.

IPO and culture Many people speculated that Google's initial public offering would inevitably lead to changes in the company's culture,Associated Press. " Quirky Google Culture Endangered?" Wired Magazine. April 28, 2004. because of shareholder pressure for employee benefit reductions and short-term advances, or because a large number of the company's employees would suddenly become millionaires on paper. In a report given to potential investors, co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page promised that the IPO would not change the company's culture.Baertlein, Lisa. " Google IPO at $2.7 billion." CIOL IT Unlimited. April 30, 2004. Later Mr. Page said, "We think a lot about how to maintain our culture and the fun elements. We spent a lot of time getting our offices right. We think it's important to have a high density of people. People are packed together everywhere. We all share offices. We like this set of buildings because it's more like a densely packed university campus than a typical suburban office park."Vise, David A. "

Google Website
Google search tool for navigating the Web

Google
even more »

Google Maps
Zoomable maps focused on an address or post code. Maps can be searched by business category. Also provides driving directions.

Google News
Aggregated headlines and search engine for many news services. Articles are grouped by story.

Google Video
Search and watch millions of videos indexed from all over the web. Upload and share videos with the world. ... South Park World of Warcraft part 1/3 by IronMaidenFan2008 Note: I ...

Google Image Search
The most comprehensive image search on the web. Advertising Programmes - Business Solutions - About Google ©2008 Google

Google Groups
Searchable archive of more than 700 million Usenet postings from a period of more than 20 years.

Google Scholar
Stand on the shoulders of giants Google Home-About Google-About Google Scholar-Go to Google Scholar ©2008 Google

Google Analytics
Service offering traffic measurement and interactive reporting for small and large sites, which includes visitor tracking, navigation analysis, traffic segmentation, conversion ...