Google's first name was Backrub. | Image: Unsplash
KEY HIGHLIGHTS
- In 1996, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin called it Backrub
- The name was chosen because the program analysed the web's "back links" to understand how important a website was, and what other sites it related to
You probably know that the name "Google" originated from a misspelling of "googol", which refers to the number represented by a 1 followed by one-hundred zeros.
But did you know that the tech giant used to be known by a completely different name.
Google was initially named BackRub.
Yes, BackRub.
In 1996, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin called it Backrub because the program analysed the web's "back links" to understand how important a website was, and what other sites it related to.
According to Stanford's David Koller, Page and his team began to think of different names for the search engine by 1997.
The name "Google" actually came from a graduate student at Stanford named Sean Anderson. He suggested the word "googolplex" and Page shortened it to "googol".
Googol is the number 1 followed by 100 zeroes, while googolplex is 1 followed by a googol zeros.
When Anderson was checking if the domain "googol.com" was available, he accidentally types "google.com".
Page liked "Google" and the name was registered on September 15, 1997.
And that's how Google was born!
While talking about the name of Google's parent company Alphabet, Page once said, "We liked the name Alphabet because it means a collection of letters that represent language, one of humanity's most important innovations, and is the core of how we index with Google search! We also like that it means alpha-bet (Alpha is investment return above benchmark), which we strive for!"
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