Interesting facts about Google:
Here are some interesting Google facts collected from all over the net:
1. The name ‘Google’ was an accident. A spelling mistake made by the original founders who thought they were going for ‘Googol’.
update:It was a typo on the first investment check they received.Also the domain name “googol.com” was already taken
2. Gmail was internally used for nearly 2 years prior to launch to the public. They discovered there was approximately 6 types of email users, and Gmail has been designed to accommodate these 6.
3. They listen to every feedback actively. Emailing Google isn’t emailing a blackhole.
4. Google employees are encouraged to use 20% of their time working for their own projects. Google News, Orkut are both examples of projects that grew from this working model.
5. The prime reason the Google home page is so bare is due to the fact that the founders didn’t know HTML and just wanted a quick interface. In fact it was noted that the submit button was a long time coming and hitting the RETURN key was the only way to burst Google into life.
6. Due to the sparseness of the homepage, in early user tests they noted people just sitting looking at the screen. After a minute of nothingness, the tester intervened and asked ‘Whats up?’ to which they replied “We are waiting for the rest of it”. To solve that particular problem the Google Copyright message was inserted to act as a crude end of page marker.
7. One of the biggest leap in search usage came about when they introduced their much improved spell checker giving birth to the “Did you mean…” feature. This instantly doubled their traffic, but they had some interesting discussions on how best to place that information, as most people simply tuned that out. But they discovered the placement at the bottom of the results was the most effective area.
8. The infamous “I feel lucky” is nearly never used. However, in trials it was found that removing it would somehow reduce the Google experience. Users wanted it to be kept. It was like a comfort button.
9. Orkut is very popular in Brazil. Orkut was the brainchild of a very intelligent Google engineer who was pretty much given free reign to run with it, without having to go through the normal Google UI procedures, hence the reason it doesn’t look or feel like a Google application. They are looking at improving Orkut to cope with the loads it places on the system.
10. Google makes small changes on their products very often. They will sometimes trial a particular feature with a set of users from a given network subnet; for example Excite@Home users often get to see new features. They aren’t told of this, just presented with the new UI and observed how they use it.
11. Google has the largest network of translators in the world
12. They use the 20% / 5% rules. If at least 20% of people use a feature, then it will be included. At least 5% of people need to use a particular search preference before it will make it into the ‘Advanced Preferences’.
13. They have found in user testing, that a small number of people are very typical of the larger user base. They run labs continually and always monitoring how people use a page of results.
14. Google logs each search queries into its systems. More ever Google got patents for hardware designing too.
15. Quote: Give Users What They Want When They Want It
16. Quote: Integrate Sensibly
By the way, here is link for official google fun facts.
Thanks to hongkiat.com for providing this topic.
I personally like 6th and 15th, What about you? Comment and tell me.
Don’t want to miss a single tip? Subscribe to my RSS Feed!
Share This Page |
Facebook
Twitter
Email This
Stumble
more...Get Free Updates for Google Tricks by Email
Hi..found you through Entrecard. This is a very interesting site. I’ve heard that about googol versus google. Both of the founders being the geeks they are..wanted to use “googol” meaning 10 to the 100th power..because that is how powerful the search engine would be. They just didn’t spell it correctly! LOL
It’s too bad privacy doesn’t enter into the 20% / 5% rule. I’m positive more than 20% of users want google to back off a little with the record keeping.
stumbled…very cool stuff,
lol at 13!! it’s a little thing called statistics
(“national polls” only test like 1000 people!)
I tell you want, google never seems to amaze me, every time i think someone is about to approach something that will give them some competition they stroke even further . . . google has some intelligence and resources this is for sure! Great info, keep it up.
You and your search criteria had better be squeaky clean if you are using Google. Google admits…ADMITS…to permanently recording ALL of your searches along with your IP address.
Can you tell us where you stole these facts from so we can learn more?
he googled them!
i like cereal
i like your mom
“You and your search criteria had better be squeaky clean if you are using Google. Google admits…ADMITS…to permanently recording ALL of your searches along with your IP address.”
still… I care why?
“Free rein” is spelled “free rein”. You’re not talking about the queen reigning her dominion, you’re talking about giving the horses their heads.
Googol??? huahahaha
1 googol = 1.0 × 10100
anyway, how could the creators of google not be able to figure out html and how to place a submit button, that makes no sense
Hello. I think the article is really interesting. I am even interested in reading more. How soon will you update your blog?
Cool facts about google!
Stumbled in…Great article with interesting facts