Google's Founding in a Garage

Google's inception can be traced back to a project initiated by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were PhD students at Stanford University. The duo developed a search engine that utilized Stanford's website, initially operating under the domains google.stanford.edu and z.stanford.edu. This early version of Google was designed to improve the way information was retrieved on the internet, focusing on the importance of links between web pages. The search engine's innovative algorithm, known as PageRank, assessed the relevance of web pages based on the number and quality of links pointing to them, which set it apart from existing search engines at the time. The growing popularity of their search engine led to the registration of the domain google.com, marking a pivotal step in their journey toward establishing a standalone company.