Understanding how Google has become one of the biggest companies in the world requires an appreciation of its overall business strategy. Furthermore, it is considered one of the Big Five technology companies in the United States IT industry, alongside Amazon, Meta or Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft.
Interested in the history of search, tech, social or anything related? Let us know a Throwback Thursday topic you want to see in the comments, or tweet us with the hashtag #TBT.The Internet giant is an American business success story. This seemingly small tweak to an already good idea is what really laid the foundation for Google's advertising model and its huge success today. Thus, if an ad with a lower bid had more clicks, it would rank higher. Whereas Overture used a model where the highest bid received the most exposure (meaning irrelevant ads could get the top spot), Google implemented the clickthrough rate into the algorithm as a way to measure the relevancy of the ad. The system was based on the notion that search queries not only reflected what a user was interested in, but also what they were interested in buying. What Google did differently, however, was introduce the same emphasis on relevancy of results and applied them to Overture's advertising model. The idea to sell pay-per-click ads on an auction basis was taken from Overture, and did not emerge until later. Realizing that advertising was a necessity for profitably, but refusing to take the same path as Yahoo and Excite, Google started offering text ads that were unobtrusive and separate from organic results. Like many of the great moves made by tech companies, the idea that would lead to AdWords was appropriated from Overture.
The strategy that really differentiated Google from other search engines was the advertising model they eventually adopted. At this time, when revenue generation on the web was still being negotiated, all of the competition was still operating by trying to keep users on their pages in order to capture more advertising dollars. This was a radical move, as Google did not yet have a business model to monetize. Two, a query directed users away from their page and towards relevant search results. For one, they didn't include any advertisements on their page. Google did something completely different. The notion of "stickiness" was believed to be the best model, which dictated that you want to attract users to your page and keep them on for as long as you could, so you could pepper them with advertisements. This was evident with early search engines. People still hadn't quite figured it out. When the search market was still negotiating its place in the World Wide Web, monetization presented a significant issue. Deviation From The "Walled-garden" Approach To put it simply, Google had a superior product. Using the idea of relevancy, they built Google in a way that - in comparison to other search engines at the time - was simply better at connecting users with more pertinent results.Ī query typed in Google provided more utility and relevancy than did Excite, Yahoo and other search engines. This notion is what laid the foundation for how Google would operate, which continues to this day. Sergei Brin and Larry Page thought of links and clicks as a sort of recommendation, an indication of relevancy and value.
This is an idea that, despite its exponential growth and development, is no different from Google as it exists today. Google started with the idea that users essentially wanted access to the most relevant information in relation to their search queries. So how is it that Google became the dominant force it is today? In our first post in our Throwback Thursdays column, we're going to give you the rundown on how Google emerged as the preeminent search engine among all the competition. Google was still in its infancy, the brainchild of two Stanford graduate students, looking for financial backing or a buy-out. Excite and Yahoo were the big players, and search engines were a dime a dozen. In the early years of search, there were a number of names in the industry, all competing for the title of king. In the current environment, Google is the search engine tour-de-force, hands down.īut it wasn't always like this. No other search engine has its name used as a verb in a sentence (ie: "I don't know, why don't you Google it"?). The search engine boasts an impressive market share and largely overshadows its competition in many of the world's key markets (China notwithstanding). Today we know Google as a dominant force in search.