Google is a web designer’s best* and most used tool. The sheer volume of searches is overwhelming. How many millions of searches are made in a month? The answer is actually billions. Almost anything related to web design or development (learning or earning), could be initiated from Google Search. And “Search” isn’t their only service.
If you don’t know the story, it’s kind of fun. Remember how we used to count up to a “googleplex” as kids, the highest number possible?! Yeah, well, they misspelled it originally too!
It was in 1997 that BackRub became “Google“, semi-accidentally during domain-registration which was initially discussing the term “googol” – a mathematical term for the number represented by the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros.
The use of the term reflects their mission to organize a seemingly infinite amount of information on the web.
It’s a fun history.
The history of the word “googol(plex)” is just as entertaining as the origin of the name “Google” briefly mentioned above. Should you still want to spell it “googleplex” well, there is one of those now. It just has a capital G.
In my experience, Google is living up to their goal: organizing the web; organizing knowledge; making what’s difficult to find, findable. And arguably instant at times, too. It’s a unique time, and it will be a continuous project undoubtedly.
So it’s officially a verb: we’ve got something we want/need to learn? “Google it.” Welcome to our world and to one of the most important web-sites/-services of our day.
*It is acknowledged that another search engine (Yahoo, Bing) can equally support the needs of web users, developers, and designers, and it is also acknowledged that more time may be spent on websites other than Google for web work. But Google often gets us there, and we count on it in an instant’s notice.
So take a moment, refresh on some featured search tips, and as the co-founder stated for the first time in participle form, “Have fun and keep on googling!”