Google Web Search
Web search: the index, the ranking and the results page. It started as a way of ranking pages by who linked to them, and that idea is still somewhere underneath everything that has been added since.
Google runs Search, Android, Chrome, YouTube, Maps, Google Cloud and Workspace, builds Pixel, Nest and Fitbit hardware, and develops the Gemini models. Founded in 1998 and based in Mountain View, California.
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Mountain View, United States
Enterprise
Founded 1998
- Page last updated
- 22 August 2026
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About Google
Google started in 1998 as a research project by two Stanford graduate students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who thought the way to rank a web page was to count who linked to it. Almost everything the company does now still runs back to that: organise the information, then make it useful to somebody who asked a question.
Search is still the front door. It has changed a great deal in the last two years, with AI Overviews summarising an answer at the top of the page and AI Mode turning a search into a conversation you can keep going, but the job it does has not.
Around Search sits most of the modern web. Android runs on more phones than any other operating system. Chrome is the browser most people open without thinking about it. YouTube is where a generation goes for everything from repair guides to live sport. Maps and Google Earth cover the physical world, Google Play distributes the applications, and Workspace is the set of tools a great many organisations run their day on: Gmail, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Calendar, Meet and Chat.
Two parts of the business are where the money and the research go. Google Ads and its neighbours, AdSense, Ad Manager, AdMob and Analytics, are the advertising system that funds the free products. Google Cloud sells the infrastructure and the data tools, from Compute Engine and Kubernetes to BigQuery and Vertex AI, to companies that would rather not run their own data centres.
Gemini is the current generation of Google's AI work. It is a consumer app, an API developers build on, and increasingly a layer inside the other products rather than a separate destination.
Google also makes hardware. Pixel covers phones, a tablet, a watch and earbuds. Nest covers the house: thermostats, cameras, doorbells, speakers, mesh wifi and the Google TV Streamer. Fitbit covers health and fitness tracking, and its app is now the Google Health app.
Google has been a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. since the 2015 reorganisation, and became Google LLC in 2017. Its head office is at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View, California. Alphabet reported 190,820 employees across the group at the end of 2025.
Brands (10)
Products (94)
AI Mode
A conversational way to search. You ask, you read the answer, and then you keep going with follow-up questions rather than starting a new search each time.
AI Overviews
The summarised answer at the top of a results page, with the links it drew on underneath. You can ask a follow-up straight from it and carry on in AI Mode.
Google Lens
Search with a camera instead of a keyboard. Point it at a plant, a landmark, a product or a page of text and it will tell you what it is looking at.
Google News
A news aggregator that gathers coverage of the same story from different publishers so you can see how they differ.
Google Scholar
Search across academic literature: papers, theses, books and court opinions, with the citation counts that go with them.
Google Trends
What people are searching for, over time and by place. Free, and widely used by journalists and marketers as a demand signal.
Google Search Console
The free tool site owners use to see how Search treats their pages: which queries bring people in, what is indexed, and what is broken.
Android OS
The mobile operating system itself, on phones and tablets from a long list of manufacturers as well as on Google's own Pixel.
Wear OS
Android for the wrist. It runs Pixel Watch and watches from several other manufacturers, and it pairs with an Android phone.
Android Auto
Puts navigation, music and messages from a phone onto the screen already built into the car, in a layout meant to be read at a glance.
Showing 12 of 94. The rest are on each brand's page above.
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Frequently asked questions
What is Google?
Google is a technology company based in Mountain View, California. It runs Search, Android, Chrome, YouTube, Maps, Gmail and Workspace, sells cloud infrastructure through Google Cloud, makes Pixel, Nest and Fitbit hardware, and develops the Gemini AI models. Its advertising business pays for most of the free products.
When was Google founded, and by whom?
On 4 September 1998, by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, out of a research project they started as graduate students at Stanford.
Is Google the same company as Alphabet?
Not quite. Alphabet Inc. was created in a 2015 reorganisation and Google became a subsidiary of it, converting to Google LLC in 2017. Alphabet is the listed parent; Google is the part of it that runs Search, Android, YouTube, Cloud and the advertising business. Alphabet reported 190,820 employees across the whole group at the end of 2025.
Where is Google's head office?
The Googleplex, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, California 94043, in the United States. The main switchboard number is (650) 253-0000.
What does Google actually sell?
Advertising, mostly: Google Ads, AdSense, Ad Manager and AdMob. Alongside that it sells cloud infrastructure and data tools through Google Cloud, subscriptions such as Google Workspace, YouTube Premium and Google Health Premium, and hardware under the Pixel, Nest and Fitbit names.
What is the difference between AI Mode and AI Overviews in Search?
An AI Overview is the summarised answer that appears at the top of an ordinary results page, with its sources listed underneath. AI Mode is a conversation: you ask, read, and keep asking follow-ups without starting a new search. You can move from one to the other by asking a follow-up straight from an overview.
What is Gemini?
Gemini is Google's family of AI models and the products built on them. It is a consumer app, an API developers build against, and a layer inside Search, Workspace and Google TV. Specific model names are left out of this listing because they change several times a year.
Which hardware does Google make itself?
Pixel phones, the Pixel Tablet, Pixel Watch and Pixel Buds; the Nest thermostats, cameras, doorbells, displays, speakers and mesh wifi; the Google TV Streamer, which replaced Chromecast; and the Fitbit trackers and watches.
From the blog
Independent coverage of Google from the Brandligo blog.
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