How Google Grows...and Grows...and Grows

orangerobot writes "The latest issue of Fast Company has an article about how Google has managed to survive beyond its peers and develop a culture of openness and innovation. The article also mentions Google memes and spin-offs such as: Googlewhack, Googlebombing, Googleshare, Googlism and Google Smackdown."

Comments

That's because it works

[coolmacdude]

When was the last time anyone visited another search engine? I can't remember when I did.

Re:That's because it works

[garcia]

no. are they forcing us to use it? is Google installed on ALL new computers without the option of having another?

there is two reasons I use Google:

1. On my p133 laptop w/Win98 Google loads faster than any other page (I never realized how slow a P133 was until I waited for /. to load as the homepage).

2. It fucking works. Not in the way that Windows "works". It just works. I type in whatever I am looking for (phone numbers, addresses, names, random things) and it comes up w/what I wanted w/o having to search 10000000's of results.

It's not a monopoly, it's a good product.

Re:That's because it works

[generic-man]

MSN is #3, after Yahoo and Google. As of last October, they had a market share of nearly 10%. While not as large as Google, they still have a significant market share.

Google as a business

[totallygeek]

I suppose with all the advertising and being the best search engine they are running well in the black, but I wonder for how long. Yahoo at one time was the only search engine most used (okay, so I used Alta Vista). All it would take is another search engine to crop up for less money that has a better method and Google is out of the limelight. So, I understand them moving into other areas of business. What has this done for their company, and when are they going public?

A triumph for google is a triumph for ethics.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is interesting to note that Google has been the only major coroporation to be successful while employing an 'ethical' policy. Unlike other search engines their page ranking system is 110% fair as they do not accept 'payments' (read bribes)to increasing ranking scores, they have not adopted widespread advertising (although most people would be happier if they had never allowed advertising on the site at all), and they have released all their search algorithms to the scientific community which has been a boon to people reaearching in Mathmatics/Computer Science.

Finally they used Linux when most of the other web businesses were running Windows. Their example has shown that a business running linux can suceed, even though it can be more difficult than running windows.

Re:A triumph for google is a triumph for ethics.

[shish]

> and they have released all their search algorithms to the scientific community

but patented them >:-(

> although most people would be happier if they had never allowed advertising on the site at all

I've found that google is the only site ever that actually gives useful on-topic ads, and thus the only ads I ever follow are google ones

Re:A triumph for google is a triumph for ethics.

[jkujawa]

Google's patents tend to actually be valid.
The patent system, as it was originally intended, is not evil. Google's technology tends to be novel and innovative, which is exactly what the patent system was intended to foster.

They're not patenting things like "1-click".

Re:Googlewhack?

[Conspiracy Theorist]

Replying to my own post, I know, I know...

But anyway, as an example of a googlewhack:
placating counterbombardment is currently a googlewhack. As soon as this page gets indexed by google, it will cease to be so.

It's pretty self-explanatory

[shayborg]

Any simple search engine that has become basically a cultural icon has to be special. You don't search for anything any more, you google for it.

Google was a good search engine in the beginning. It gained popularity, which made it a better search engine, which let it gain more popularity, which made it an even better search engine, ad infinitum.

It's not an exaggeration to claim that, right now, Google has earned itself the enviable position of becoming the first (at least nearly) definitive search engine.

-- shayborg

THE FIRST THING YOU SEE

[Syncroswitch]

I was just wondering how many people use Google as their home page. It seems to be the sight I use the most when I am trying to finish real work. ( I spend more time on Slashdot, but that dosent make it useful... its like taking the newspaper, or LJ to the bathroom...) Does anyone know of a listing or poll of homepage settings. Would slashdot like to run one...

Google News

[Jaguar777]

I'm beginning to wonder what percentage of new Slashdot stories deal with google. Google seems to be a topic just as active as Microsoft. Maybe it is time for a Google section?

Suggestions for Google

[NigelJohnstone]

Yeh, Googles great an' all, but that doesn't mean it can't be better.

All the main keywords come up with heavily text focussed sites because text is what Google can index properly. They need to be better at rating image sites and annimation sites.

Then there's the 'multi-domain' spamming - sites set up across multiple domains pretending to be different but all being basically the same, simply for the link bonus.

If Google detects that several domains are really the same site, then it should treat all links between the sites as internal links in a single site, and all the sites corresponding pages should get the same PR value, since they *are* the same page, just on different domains.

At the moment it seems to assign the PR to one of the sites and drop the PR on the others. I can understand that they don't want a big cluster of sites dominating the index, but shouldn't it simply treat the sites as one great big site and return only 2 entries from the whole group?

Also how about using geography & time to detect when weighting the value of a link?

Suppose 2 DNS entries are registered at roughly the same time by the same person in the same address those sites are more likely to be the same site so links between them should have a lower rating.

Now suppose 2 sites are registered by different people, but in the same town. Links between those two sites should be downgraded slightly, since there is a slight probability of collusion.

Same with domains that cross link at and were created at the same time but in different locations by different people. Much more likely that those people would be looking to link exchange and so the links would be less about content and more about exchange.

So the maximum weight would be given to a link that came later on as a site became more popular, from a site that was registered at a different time from a different person in a different location. In this case the chance of collusion would be very low so the link could be trusted more - its much more likely to be done for content reasons.

Google not a monopoly, part of an oligopoly

[bmcent1]

I LOVE Google! I thought it was the best search engine out there from the day I first saw it in beta. It is fast, clean, and the results returned are usually right on the mark. They used comodity computing hardware and Linux (I think, or BSD) to get the most computing power for their dollar. What worries me, because I have recently come face to face with the status quo, is that Goodle, and FAST/AllTheWeb/Inktomi (possibly including LookSmart) virtually OWN the entire web seach business. There are two or three corporations now that run the backend seach engines for the top 20 web search sites. That alone would not necessarily be a problem. But have you tried to get your site listed in a seach engine lately? Google and AllTheWeb now tell you to expect 4-8 weeks to be listed. On most you can pay money for an "expedited listing." Back in my day, the search engines WANTED URL submissions and they would crawl your site quickly because there was a lot of competition to build the biggest indexes on the web. That doesn't seem to be the case anymore. Google, and other search engines are incredibly important to the web. When search engines started out, they didn't accept pay for placement or expedited listing for a fee. Serving such a central role on the web, this trend is not the direction I'd like to see search engines taking.

Why Google is successful, really

[Animats]

Fast Company doesn't get it. Google is successful because they live within their means. They started as a low-cost operation, and they didn't pour money into "expansion" until they had actual revenue to cover it. Compare, say, VA Linux, with that huge IPO for a dinky company.

Stock market hype types keep talking about Google "going public". They're more likely to go private; the founders may buy out the venture capitalists.