Back in 1996, two Stanford PH.D. students by the names of Larry Page and Sergey Brin began a research project. They theorized that an internet search engine that analyzed relationships between websites would produce better and more consistent results than existing search techniques. At the time, search engines merely ranked results by how many times the keywords appeared within a web page. Originally named "BackRub", the new system returned results based on the number of backlinks that pointed to any given website. They were convinced that the sites with the most backlinks were the most relevant as each link was essentially casting a vote of support (like a balloting system). On September 15th, 1997 the students registered the domain Google and the dawn of a new era of web searching had begun.
Incorporated as Google Inc. on September 7th, 1998, the Google search engine soon attracted a large group of followers as new internet users were eager to experience the web. The clean and simple design of the Google interface was appealing to users as they were not bombarded with endless advertisements or screen clutter. It's rumored that the Google interface design was never really a design at all. The founders didn't know much HTML and quickly put together a screen would serve as their testing ground for Google. Whatever the case, Google won over millions of loyal followers with its unique searching capabilities and interface that was void of visual distractions.
Google soon began selling advertisements in 2000. Google's brand of advertisement was unique in that they only allowed text advertising that was associated with the search keyword to help produce enhanced search results and reduced page load times. The strategy proved to be a winner for Google as it generated advertising revenue based on the number of clicks each ad received. This form of advertising was originally established by Goto.com, which later became Overture.com. Google soon expanded on it's advertising campaign and spawned Google AdWords and Google AdSense.
On September 4th, 2001 a patent was officially assigned to Standford University with Lary Page as the Inventor. Google's ranking mechanism (PageRank) was official and would change the way millions of people search for information.
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