Google

Adsense Rules

2008-06-11T22:12:00.001-07:00

Introduction

If you're going to use Adsense then its important that you play by the rules both for your own benefit and everyone else's. Remember that Google haven't become the biggest advertising business on the internet without being strict and banning people who break the rules.

We have listed the quickest way to get banned from Adsense so you can AVOID them all:

	Do not encourage users to click your ads in any way
	Do not put ads on pages with no content, pop-up, pop-under, error page, registration or similar pages.
	Do not overlap ads with content that users cannot distinguish between
	Do not use automated bots to increase clicks on your site
	Do not encourage or participate in 'click groups' that click each others ads. Google have been known to set these groups up to get people banned.
	Make sure you don't display more than the maximum number of ads on a page. Check with the Google Adsense rules. Here are the current limits; 3 Ad units, 1 Link unit, 2 Adsense for Search boxes and a maximum of 2 Referrals (of the same product). Check the most up to date rules to be sure you are not breaking them
	Do not create more than one Adsense account. You CAN have more than one site for a single Adsense account.
	Do not edit or modify the Adsense code (this does not include changing properties)
	Do not redirect users away from any advertisers page
	Do not click your own ads (not even to test them)
	Do not display pornographic, hatred or any other banned content
	Do not buy banned sites, typically MFA from others

Banned from Adsense

A lot of people get banned simply because they break the rules and then expect Google to just forgive them. For some others, a ban can be a complete surprise and a worrying one. If you become the victim to a ban and feel that your were wrongly banned then see our 'Banned from Adsense' section.

How to boost your AdSense revenue

2008-06-11T21:45:00.000-07:00

AdSense often easier than affiliate programs

Google's AdSense is a superb revenue generating opportunity for small, medium and large web sites.

Some webmasters are designing brand new sites specifically for serving AdSense text ads. (It's against the AdSense rules to design a site purely for AdSense, so you'll want to include a few affiliate links or sell your own product, too.)

Here's the background info:

AdSense overview
AdSense FAQ
AdSense tech FAQ
AdSense policies

AdSense allows you to serve text-based Google AdWords on your web site and receive a share of the pay-per-click payment. AdSense ads are similar to the AdWords ads you see on the right-hand side at Google when you do a search there.

AdSense is having a huge impact on the affiliate marketing industry. It's often much easier to generate revenue from AdSense than from an affiliate program.

Weak affiliate merchants will die faster than ever.

If you're a merchant running a lousy affiliate program, now's the time to improve it FAST.

AdSense's advantages

AdSense is simple to join.

It's easy to paste a bit of code into your pages.

It's free to join.

You don't have to spend time finding advertisers.

Google provides well written, highly relevant ads - chosen to closely match the content on your pages.

You don't have to waste time choosing different ads for different pages.

You don't have to mess around with different code for various affiliate programs.

You're free to concentrate on providing good content and Google does the work of finding the best ads for your pages from 100,000 AdWords advertisers.

It's suitable for beginners or marketing veterans.

AdSense provides simple, easy-to-understand stats.

If you have affiliate links on your site, you ARE allowed to add AdSense ads. However, with your affiliate links, you must not mimic the look and feel of the Google ads.

You can filter up to 200 URLs, so you can block ads for sites that don't meet your standards. You can also block strong competitors.

Inevitably, AdSense is competing strongly for space on web sites with all other revenue sharing opportunities.

If you own a small web site you can plug a bit of AdSense code into your site and almost instantly relevant text ads that are likely to appeal to your visitors will appear on your pages.

If you own several sites, you need apply only once. This makes AdSense much simpler than joining a bunch of affiliate programs.

As you can see, I'm really keen on this revenue sharing service.

Disadvantages

One problem is inappropriate ads. You don't want spammy junk advertised on your site. Google's standards probably aren't as high as yours. You can filter out 200 URLs, but in some industries that won't be enough.

The stats Google supplies are inadequate. They're easy to understand at a glance. However, they don't tell you exactly which ads people are clicking on, or which keywords are involved. That's frustrating.

Also, I'd like to be able to identify and block ads that have very low payout rates, without doing a lot of sleuthing and messing around.

The ad panels say "Ads by Google" - free advertising for Google. You don't earn anything if someone clicks on that link.

The minimum payout is $100, which is regarded as too high by sites which don't receive much traffic. That won't worry experienced webmasters.

Also, sites that want to display AdSense ads may not include "other content-targeted and/or text-based ads on the pages displaying AdWords ads." However, human beings review the sites. Rejected sites have been able to appeal successfully.

Another disadvantage is that Google doesn't allow you to share your stats with other webmasters. The AdSense Terms and Conditions say:

"Confidentiality. You agree not to disclose Google Confidential Information without Google's prior written consent. 'Google Confidential Information' includes without limitation: ... (b) click-through rates or other statistics relating to Site performance in the Program provided to you by Google..."

That's really weird. Web site owners need to be able to share such information and discuss successes and failures.

A big disadvantage of the service is that Google doesn't say how much its AdSense partners will receive. You'll just receive an unknown share of the revenue.

Only a company with the goodwill and respect Google has earned could get away with such a cheeky offer.

Google says:

"How much will I earn through this program? The AdWords ads you are able to display on your content pages are cost-per-click (CPC) ads. This means that advertisers pay only when users click on ads. You'll receive a portion of the amount paid for clicks on AdWords ads on your website. Although we don't disclose the exact revenue share, our goal is to enable publishers to make as much or more than they could with other advertising networks."

So the only way to know how much you'll earn is to try it and see. If you want to bail out, all you have to do is remove the code from your site.

Don't put all your eggs in the AdSense basket. If Google discovers fraudulent clicks on ads appearing on your pages, it can dump your site from the service, and refuse to pay you all revenue owed. Some webmasters who claim total innocence have had this happen to them.

Google has made several changes to its AdSense FAQ, clarifying varying things. For example, it IS possible to apply for separate accounts for separate web sites. I've done so, and checked with Google that it's OK in my case. Read the rules - they look ambiguous to me. If in doubt, ask first!

Some time after the launch of AdSense, Google added "channels" which improve the tracking. I strongly recommend that you experiment with these.

Sites with "excessive advertising" are being rejected.

Adsense - Essential Content For Sites

2008-06-11T21:44:00.000-07:00

To know why Adsense is essential for your content sites is to know first how this works.

The concept is really simple, if you think about it. The publisher or the webmaster inserts a java script into a certain website. Each time the page is accessed, the java script will pull advertisements from the Adsense program. The ads that are targeted should therefore be related to the content that is contained on the web page serving the ad. If a visitor clicks on an advertisement, the webmaster serving the ad earns a portion of the money that the advertiser is paying the search engine for the click.

The search engine is the one handling all the tracking and payments, providing an easy way for webmasters to display content-sensitive and targeted ads without having the hassle to solicit advertisers, collect funds, monitor the clicks and statistics which could be a time-consuming task in itself. It seems that there is never a shortage of advertisers in the program from which the search engine pulls the Adsense ads. Also webmasters are less concerned by the lack of information search engines are providing and are more focused in making cash from these search engines.

The first reason why Adsense is essential for content sites is because it already has come a long way in understanding the needs of publishers and webmasters. Together with its continuous progression is the appearance of more advanced system that allows full ad customization. Webmasters are given the chance to choose from many different types of text ad formats to better complement their website and fit their webpage layout.

The different formatting enables the site owners the possibility of more click through from visitors who may or may not be aware of what they are clicking on. It can also appeal to the people visiting thus make them take that next step of looking up what it is all about. This way the people behind the Adsense will get their content read and making profit in the process.

The second reason is the ability of the Adsense publishers to track not only how their sites are progressing but also the earnings based on the webmaster-defined channels. The recent improvements in the search engines gives webmasters the capability to monitor how their ads are performing using customizable reports that has the capacity to detail page impressions, clicks and click-through rates. Webmasters and publishers can now track specific ad formats, colors and pages within a website. Trends are also easily spotted.

With the real-time reporting at hand, the effectiveness of the changes made will be assessed quickly. There would be time to sort out the contents that people are making the most clicks on. The ever-changing demands would be met while generating cash for the webmasters and publishers. The more flexible tools are also allowing webmasters to group web pages by URL, domain, ad type or category, which will provide them some accurate insight on which pages, ads and domains are performing best.

The last and final reason is that the advertisers have realized the benefits associated having their ads served on targeted websites. Thus increasing the possibility that a prospective web surfer will have an interest in their product and services. All because of the content and its constant maintenance. As opposed to those who are no using Adsense in their sites, they are given the option of having other people do their content for them, giving them the benefit of having successful and money-generating web sites.

Adsense is all about targeted content, the more targeted your content is, the more target the search engines’ ads will be. There are some web masters and publishers who are focused more on their site contents and how best to maintain them rather than the cash that the ads will generate for them. This is the part where the effectiveness is working its best.

There was a time when people were not yet aware of the money to be achieved from advertisements. The cash generated only came into existence when the webmasters and publishers realized how they can make Adsense be that generator. In those days, the content was the most important factors that are taken quite seriously. It still is. With the allure of money, of course.

So don’t waste your web site without putting Adsense, it may take some time to work on, but the return is still may help you make some money, which we call the MSI – multi source of income.

Do You Make These Mistakes With Adsense?

2008-06-11T21:43:00.001-07:00

Don't you think it is fascinating that with so many Adsense publishers, all setting up hundreds of sites, they have absolutely no idea who their clients are? The first rule of setting up and maintaining a successful business is thorough knowledge of your client.

Let's flip the coin and look at it from another angle. Google does not pay you for clicks on your site; the Adwords advertiser is forking out the money for your checks. The reason why he advertises is to sell a product or service or to drive people to his site for a subscription or whatever reason. He is doing it to gain a business advantage.

The question here is: Are you giving him an advantage or are you just costing him money?

You have heard "˜Adsense is dead' or "˜there is not so much money to be made from Adsense as in the past'. Most Adsense publishers think they have to set up a few more sites which will make up for the lost income. Dead wrong.

The reason for the downward spiral in Adsense income originates from untargeted ads on web pages. Most people would love to place the blame at the doorstep of Google, but this is not the case. The problem lies with the publishing of thousands of websites solely intended to get clicks, thus optimized for the search engine and not giving a second thought to the advertiser from Adwords.

The result from the misuse of Adsense is obvious. In most of the current Adwords information products one of the first warnings you are given when placing AdWords ads is to remove the link to advertise on the content network. The reason is simple; the ads appear on untargeted pages leading to untargeted customers. This is a waste of the advertiser's money and a direct loss of income for the Adsense publisher. All the serious Adwords advertisers are not advertising on the content network, which in turn leads to less competition. The cost per click on a content page is far less that the cost on a generic page search.

Adwords and Adsense will never die and is and will remain one of the top income earners for many internet marketers.

So what now? The answer lies in improved sites with quality content. Play with the search engine not against it. If you want to compete with a search engine start your own. Not impossible, Google did it and succeeded.

So what exactly is improved content?

The keywords you are optimizing for should relate to your web content and add value for the visitor. This does not mean you have to write one thousand word pages all on your own. One to two hundred words per page will be fine as long as it answers the question or part of the question that the visitor was searching for with the search term. From there on the page can lead to Adsense ads and a click on the link will be a targeted visitor for the advertiser.

You also do not need to write each page yourself, you can still use PLR content and articles for your sites just make sure that the main question that the visitor would have when searching for that term is answered and lead them further to more specific information through Adsense ads.

Can you imagine the joy on your face when receiving a five figure check from Adsense, and think of the joy you would place on the face of the Adwords advertiser also receiving a five figure payday?

Once you have your site set up correctly there are a few elements that you need to give attention to. The truth about Adsense placement is that there is a trick to it. For high CTR your ad placement must be highly optimized.

I have seen this myself in testing different Adsense placement methods. One placement for all does not work. On certain pages it would be higher up and on others it would be lower down.

It is all dependent on the content of the page and the question you should ask yourself is at which point in the content is the visitor the most likely to want more specific information. If you write your content yourself you should write it in such a way that you give information and then raise curiosity, and it is at that point where your ad should appear for the first time. By utilizing this method and keeping your content targeted you will receive many clicks and your Adwords advertiser will receive the targeted visitors he wants.

Are you beginning to see how important it is to get the content and your ads right Now, let me ask you this: Are you one of the Adsense publishers who are costing advertiser's money or are you one that actually help make advertisers money?

Don't Get Caught With Google Adsense Click Fraud

2008-06-11T21:37:00.000-07:00

Many web site owners are getting their Google Adsense account terminated when they have done nothing wrong to deserve the punishment. Considering the money that they are getting from Adsense, they would certainly want to get back into it.

Considering the money to be made with Adsense, it is no wonder that they would want to get back into it.

It is that same consideration why the Google Adsense click fraud is thought of and why many people are getting into it.

Click fraud is the act of clicking on ads for the purpose of costing the advertiser money. It is simply the same as paying out cash for false leads. Many people website owners are aware of this fraud and are sharing the same sentiment that this is the one big problem that Adsense is facing.

How do you prevent being involved in this fraud?

Majority of web hosts are offering access logs. Once this is offered to you, it is necessary that you hand it over to Google as well. This allows them to look for any suspicious activity on your site. Problems like this are very serious and giving it to them is saying that you would want to help them in any way you can in solving the problem.

It can also help if you have a click monitoring software. If you do not have one yet, you should try and get one. There is absolutely no major factor preventing you from having one because most of this software is free.

As usual, all the information you have received should be turned over to Google. This is showing Google that you too are fighting against click frauds and is in no way a part of it.

Study your server logs and watch for any activity that seems suspicious. Report anything that you may find odd, may it big or small thing.

You may want to consider disabling ads for your own IP address and local geographic area. This will certainly prevent accidents and will not make Google mistake another user as you. You can do through a htaccess file. This will avoid Google mistaking as clicking on your own ads and be kicked out because of it.

Keep your Adsense off on pop ups and pop unders. Your ads should not be displayed on content sites that promote illegal activity or tampering of the legal rights of other people or business. Included in this are the content that is considered adult and gambling ones. If you think that you may be breaking this rule, immediately remove your content or Adsense from the web page.

Be truthful and confess up to Google about times when you might have clicked on your own as, whether accidentally or intentionally. Or the times when you have done something that is against the Terms of Service that they are implementing. Be honest about anything that you may have done that is wrong. Confessing is way better than Google learning about it eventually. It would mean eventual termination and no getting back what you have worked so hard for.

Do not tell your family or friends about Adsense on your website. Chances are they may start clicking on them to help you make money without you knowing it. They may be doing more harm to you than help by trying it in the first place.

If ever someone you know chanced upon your Adsense, make sure they understand that they cannot click on your ads under any circumstances. It would be wise to brief them on important things about Adsense and what not to do with them.
Most pay per click networks have different measures in hand to protect website owners against click frauds. Other search engines can track more than 50 data points, IP address, browser’s information, user’s session info and pattern recognition. They also have “systems” available that detects fraud. Not to mention the specialized teams monitoring how things are going and helping advertisers stop click frauds.

Google offers suggestion on how to avoid click fraud. Using “negative keywords” can be used to keep your Adsense showing on products and services that are in no way related to yours. Adding tracking URLs to your links so you can track the traffic coming from Google.

Adsense Sites: Can Beginners Make Money with AdSense Sites?

2008-06-11T21:34:00.000-07:00

If you are in Internet marketing or have been reading the ads all over the Internet about how to make money from your website you can't have missed all the talk of AdSense. This is one of Google's main revenue generators and over the few years it has been around has made quite a few early adopters a lot of money.

Google makes a percentage of the cost of the ads and the website owner where the ads show up makes the remaining percentage. The AdSense ads are actually the ads placed through Google's AdWords Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising program.

Unfortunately as with all good things it seems, the money making potential seems to have diminished for the majority of those trying to make a go of AdSense as a viable money maker. That is not to say you can't make money off the AdSense program, it's just not as easy as it apparently was. Unfortunately I was not one of those who made good money off AdSense ads.

Regardless of all the ads promoting really big money from AdSense and the fact that there are still people collecting big profits from it, let's look at it through the eyes of someone just getting into the program in earnest. Someone like many of us that do not have a large source of traffic, or maybe even no traffic to sites we want to add AdSense to. In many cases we might have sites made specifically to be monetized with AdSense. Is it worthwhile to have sites specifically designed to make its income from AdSense ads? I say sites because it is not logical to think someone with a site that does not yet have a huge amount of traffic to believe they can make lots of money from a single site with AdSense on it.

Not going into details, the Google AdSense program is where a website owner has joined the AdSense program and allows Google to place AdSense ads on their website. When a visitor to the website clicks on an AdSense ad the website owner makes a few cents to many dollars from that click. How much you make is dependent on several factors such as the market the ad is trying to capture clicks from, the efficiency of the ad, the keywords the ad is focusing on and other factors. Certain types of ads almost always pay more per click than others. Insurance, loans, and finance ads pay a lot more than an ad for garden tools or gift baskets or paper plates, etc. would pay.

Real Life Example

I decided to give AdSense a try and see if I could make an average of $5 a day from a site designed to be monetized with AdSense ads. The sites are essentially sites with articles on them based on the theme of the site. I wrote some of the articles but purchased most of them. Articles to be added to the sites in the future will be mostly purchased due to lack of time to write articles myself. They are the content of the sites. The sites are mostly written in html, although I do have a few that are php coded sites.

On the pages with the articles are the AdSense ads, usually three blocks of ads on a page. The sites are small with most being about nine to 15 pages total. Adding articles on a regular basis will slowly build up the sites over time which is what the search engines want to see. I started with twenty new AdSense sites and three older blog sites I already had, plus two new portal sites that had no traffic going to them. All sites were monetized with AdSense.

The AdSense sites cost nothing, but the few articles on each site cost about eight dollars each. Articles can cost from about twenty-five cents to fifteen dollars or more depending on the source and quality. The lower cost articles require considerable rewriting so as not to cause your article to be considered a duplicate article and incur a so-called duplicate content penalty.

Allowing for placing five articles a month on a site plus some miscellaneous costs like hosting, domain name, software, and potential maintenance costs, a fifty dollar monthly cost per site is incurred. Yes you could write all or most of the articles yourself, but that is not practical if you have many sites and is very time consuming. So I am discounting that solution as impractical if you have many sites. So to break even on these types of AdSense sites each site needs to make about $50 a month. That’s an average of $1.70 a day.

A measly $1.70 a day, that should be easy for a site to make. Maybe it is, but it is heavily dependent on the traffic to the site and the corresponding clicks on the AdSense ads that result from it. To put things in perspective, look at the results of my twenty AdSense sites, three blogs, and two portal sites. All sites except the three older sites have been up slightly over three months. I started getting a few links to each site just this past month.

Real Life Terrible Results

Only last month did I start getting links to any of the sites. I am averaging about $1 a day from all twenty-five sites together. That’s about $25 a month total, far less than break even cost. I just checked today and have made $50.55 for this current month, month four for most sites. That's about one twenty-fifth of what I need to break even for the sites. Half the money came from the twenty AdSense sites, with the rest from the other five sites. There are still two more days left in this month.

I believe the results will continue to improve as long as I add articles and get links to the sites. It is a long way to go until the sites break even, if they ever do, so I am not holding my breath. Although these results are terrible, in my opinion, it must be mentioned that I am doing this part-time and only recently has there been an effort to get links to the sites. If it had been a full-time effort (and it could easily have been) then the results would seem even worse. I have totally ignored the effort (which has been considerable) in getting the sites up and working properly, correcting and adding the articles and revising the links for each new article I added to the site.

I do have software that would easily generate such sites, but decided not to use it due to leaving footprints and having the sites considered spam sites by Google or the other two top search engines. From the looks of it right now it's too early to make an accurate judgment as to whether the sites will be worthwhile. I tend to think the effort is too great the way my sites are set up now and the cost of the articles too high to make a decent long term profit. I figure I need to revise how the articles are added and probably get the cost of the articles down a lot more, to less than half what I am paying now to have a fair chance to break even, let along make a profit.

Is AdSense Worthwhile for Beginners?

So the question, can beginners make money with AdSense sites cannot be answered yet with any accuracy from my results so far. On the surface it appears the answer is no, not if following my route. Only if extraordinary amounts of traffic can be obtained does it look like my sites will make any decent money from AdSense. Probably another, a better approach, will be necessary and a lot more pages with AdSense ads on it will be required to be able to make any significant money. I suspect I will need at least 50 to 100, or more, articles per site to have a fair chance of creating a small part-time equivalent income from the sites.

If you consider an average cost of six dollars for an article, and that is a very low cost for a new article, and still the same five articles a month, with just half the estimated ten dollars monthly miscellaneous costs being only five dollars, the thirty-five dollar monthly cost per site still is difficult to conceive making even that much from the poor results experienced so far. Only time will tell whether the effort will be worthwhile.

I am already changing my html sites so they will be easier and faster to add the new articles. Unfortunately that may cause me to effectively start over with my AdSense earnings since the links will be different and any pages already indexed will have to be re-indexed again since I am changing the sites little by little to php sites. I did something similar several months ago to a single larger site and even months later over 500 of those original pages were still indexed even though they had been off the site for many months.

5 Ways To Improve Your Adsense Earnings

2008-06-11T21:22:00.000-07:00

If webmasters want to monetize their websites, the great way to do it is through Adsense. There are lots of webmasters struggling hard to earn some good money a day through their sites. But then some of the “geniuses” of them are enjoying hundreds of dollars a day from Adsense ads on their websites. What makes these webmasters different from the other kind is that they are different and they think out of the box.

The ones who have been there and done it have quite some useful tips to help those who would want to venture into this field. Some of these tips have boosted quite a lot of earnings in the past and is continuously doing so.

Here are some 5 proven ways on how best to improve your Adsense earnings.

1. Concentrating on one format of Adsense ad. The one format that worked well for the majority is the Large Rectangle (336X280). This same format have the tendency to result in higher CTR, or the click-through rates. Why choose this format out of the many you can use? Basically because the ads will look like normal web links, and people, being used to clicking on them, click these types of links. They may or may not know they are clicking on your Adsense but as long as there are clicks, then it will all be for your advantage.

2. Create a custom palette for your ads. Choose a color that will go well with the background of your site. If your site has a white background, try to use white as the color of your ad border and background. The idea to patterning the colors is to make the Adsense look like it is part of the web pages. Again, This will result to more clicks from people visiting your site.

3. Remove the Adsense from the bottom pages of your site and put them at the top. Do not try to hide your Adsense. Put them in the place where people can see them quickly. You will be amazed how the difference between Adsense locations can make when you see your earnings.

4. Maintain links to relevant websites. If you think some sites are better off than the others, put your ads there and try to maintaining and managing them. If there is already lots of Adsense put into that certain site, put yours on top of all of them. That way visitor will see your ads first upon browsing into that site.

5. Try to automate the insertion of your Adsense code into the WebPages using SSI (or server side included). Ask your web administrator if your server supports SSI or not. How do you do it? Just save your Adsense code in a text file, save it as “adsense text”, and upload it to the root directory of the web server. Then using SSI, call the code on other pages. This tip is a time saver especially for those who are using automatic page generators to generate pages on their website.

These are some of the tips that have worked well for some who want to generate hundreds and even thousands on their websites. It is important to know though that ads are displayed because it fits the interest of the people viewing them. So focusing on a specific topic should be your primary purpose because the displays will be especially targeted on a topic that persons will be viewing already.

Note also that there are many other Adsense sharing the same topic as you. It is best to think of making a good ad that will be somewhat different and unique than the ones already done. Every clickthrough that visitors make is a point for you so make every click count by making your Adsense something that people will definitely click on.

Tips given by those who have boosted their earnings are just guidelines they want to share with others. If they have somehow worked wonders to some, maybe it can work wonders for you too. Try them out into your ads and see the result it will bring.

Standalone applications Google

2007-11-06T18:25:00.000-08:00

* AdWords Editor [1] (Mac OS X (10.4), Windows 2000 SP3+/XP/Vista)

Desktop application to manage a users Google AdWords account. The application allows users to make changes to their account and advertising campaigns before synchronising with the online service.

* Desktop [2] (Linux, Mac OS X, Windows 2000 SP3+/XP/Vista)

Desktop search application, that indexes e-mails, documents, music, photos, chats, Web history and other files. It allows the installation of Google Gadgets.

* Earth [3] (Linux, Mac OS X and Windows 2000/XP/Vista)

Virtual globe that uses satellite imagery, aerial photography and GIS over a 3D globe.

* Gmail/Google Notifier [4] (Mac OS X, Windows 2000/XP)

Alerts the user of new messages in their Gmail account.

* Hello [5] (Windows 98/ME/2000/XP)

Allows users to send images across the Internet and publish them to blogs.

* Pack [6] (Windows XP/Vista)

Collection of computer applications -- some Google-created, some not -- including Google Earth, Google Desktop, Picasa, Google Talk, Star Office and Mozilla Firefox.

* Photos Screensaver [7]

Slideshow screensaver as part of Google Pack, which displays images sourced from a hard disk, or through RSS and Atom Web feeds.

* Picasa [8] (Linux and Windows 2000/XP/Vista)

Photo organization and editing application, providing photo library options and simple effects.

* Picasa 2

Photo organization and editing application, providing even more options and effects than Picasa.

* Picasa Web Albums Uploader [9] (Mac OS X)

An application to help uploading images to the "Picasa Web Albums" service It consists of both an iPhoto plug-in and a stand-alone application.

* Secure Access [10] (Windows 2000/XP)

VPN client for Google WiFi users, whose equipment does not support WPA or 802.1x protocols

* SketchUp [11] (Mac OS X and Windows 2000/Windows XP)

Simple 3D sketching program with unique dragging interface and direct integration with Google Earth.

* Talk [12] (Windows 2000/Windows XP/Server 2003/Vista)

Application for VoIP and instant messaging. It consists of both a service and a client used to connect to the service, which uses the XMPP protocol.

* Video Player [13] (Mac OS X/Windows 2000/XP)

Video player to watch videos from Google Video, including unique resume and download features. (Also included in Google Pack.)

* Web Accelerator [14] (Windows 2000 SP3+/XP/Vista)

Uses various caching technologies to increase load speed of web pages.

[edit] Desktop extensions

These products created by Google are extensions to software created by other organizations.

* Blogger Web Comments [15] (Firefox extension)

Displays related comments from other Blogger users.

* Browser Sync [16] (Firefox extension)

Saves browser settings for backup and use on other installations of Mozilla Firefox.

* Dashboard Widgets for Mac [17] (Mac OS X Dashboard Widgets)

Collection of mini-applications including Gmail, Blogger and Search History.

* Pinyin IME [18] (Internet Explorer extension) (Google China)

Input Method Editor that is used to convert Chinese Pinyin characters, which can be entered on Western-style keyboards, to Chinese characters.

* Send to Phone [19] (Web and Firefox extension)

Allows users to send text messages to their mobile phone (US only) about web content.

* Toolbar [20] (Firefox and Internet Explorer extension)

Web browser toolbar with features such as a Google Search box, phishing protection, pop-up blocker as well as the ability for website owners to create buttons.

[edit] Mobile products

[edit] Online mobile products

These products must be accessed through a browser on a mobile device.

* Blogger Mobile [21]

Only available on some US networks. Allows you to post to your Blogger blog from a mobile device.

* Calendar [22]

Read a list of all Google Calendar events from a mobile device. There is also the option to quickly add events to your personal calendar.

* Gmail [23]

Access a Gmail account from a mobile device using a standard mobile web browser. Alternatively, Google provides a specific mobile application to access and download Gmail messages quicker.

* News [24]

Access Google News on a mobile device using a simpler interface compared to the full online application.

* Google Mobilizer[25]

Makes any web page mobile-friendly.

* iGoogle [26]

Simple version of iGoogle - you must visit the information page to choose which modules to display on your personal mobile version as not all modules are compatible.

* Product Search [27]

Updated version of the previous Froogle Mobile

* Reader [28]

View Google Reader on a mobile device.

* Mobile search [29]

Search web pages, images, local listings and mobile-specific web pages through the Google search engine. If a webpage is not tailored for a mobile device Google will provide a simple text version of the webpage generated using an algorithm.

* Picasa Web Albums [30]

Lets you view photo albums that you have stored online.

[edit] Downloadable mobile products

These products must be downloaded and run from a mobile device.

* Gmail mobile [31]

A downloadable application that has many advantages over accessing Gmail through a web interface on a mobile such as the ability to interact with Gmail features including labels and archiving. Requires a properly configured Java Virtual Machine, which is not available by default on some platforms (such as Palm's Treo).

* Maps Mobile [32]

Mobile application for viewing maps on a mobile device. Unlike other Mobile Google products, mobile Maps is available in non-Java versions, avoiding the difficulties with getting a Java Runtime Environment installed and properly configured on the mobile device. Maps mobile is currently available in versions for Blackberry devices, Windows Mobile and Palm OS smartphones.

* Google Talk (Blackberry Exclusive) [33]

A Mobile application to stay connected your contacts while you're away from your computer. The Google Talk application for BlackBerry® smartphones, is offered by BlackBerry®. Just browse to http://www.blackberry.com/GoogleTalk (from your blackberry browser) to download the free application. Google Talk on the BlackBerry® smartphone uses the same familiar interface for your Google Apps contact list, so you can quickly see who's online and instant message with them from anywhere (in real time). This application is free, but carrier charges may apply. (If you have a data plan with your carrier, this is sufficient, Google Talk only uses data.)

[edit] Web products

These products must be accessed via a Web browser.

[edit] Advertising

* AdSense [34]

Advertisement program for Website owners. Adverts generate revenue on either a per-click or per-thousand-ads-displayed basis, and are adverts shown are from AdWords users, depending on which adverts are relevant.

* AdWords [35]

Google's flagship advertising product, and main source of revenue. AdWords offers pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and site-targeted advertising for both text and banner ads.

* AdWords Website Optimizer [36]

Integrated AdWords tool for testing different website content, in order to gain to the most successful advertising campaigns.

* Audio Ads [37]

Radio advertising program for US businesses. Google began to roll this product out en masse on 15 May 2007 through its exisiting AdWords interface.

* Click-to-Call [38]

Calling system so users can call advertisers for free at Google's expense from search results pages.

* Grants [39]

Scheme for non-profit organizations to benefit from free Cost-Per-Click advertising on the AdWords network.

* TV Ads [40]

CPM-driven television advertising scheme available on a trial basis, currently aimed towards professional advertisers, agencies and partners.

[edit] Communication & Publishing

* 3D Warehouse [41]

Google 3D Warehouse is an online service that hosts 3D models of existing objects, locations (including buildings) and vehicles created in Google SketchUp by the aforementioned application's users. The models can be downloaded into Google SketchUp by other users or Google Earth.

* Apps [42]

Custom domain and service integration service for businesses, enterprise and education, featuring Gmail and other Google products.

* Blogger [43]

Weblog publishing tool. Users can create a custom, hosted blogs with features such as photo publishing, comments, group blogs, blogger profiles and mobile-based posting with little technical knowledge.

* Calendar [44]

Free online calendar. It includes a unique "quick add" function which allows users to insert events using natural language input. Other features include Gmail integration and calendar sharing. It is similar to those offered by Yahoo! and MSN.

* Docs [45]

Document, spreadsheet and presentation application, with document collaboration and publishing capabilities.

* Dodgeball [46]

Social networking site built specifically for use on mobile phones. Users text their location to the service, which then notifies them of crushes, friends, friends' friends and interesting venues nearby.

* FeedBurner [47]

News feed management services, including feed traffic analysis and advertising facilities.

* Gadgets [48]

Mini-applications designed to display information or provide a function in a succinct manner. Available in Universal or Desktop format.

* Gmail [49] (Also known as Google Mail)

Free Webmail and POP e-mail service provided by Google, known for its abundant storage and advanced interface. It was first released in an invitation-only form on April 1, 2004. Mobile access and Google Talk integration is also featured.

* GrandCentral [50]

Free voice communications product that includes a POTS telephone number. It includes a follow-me service that allows the user to forward their GrandCentral phone number to simultaneously ring up to 6 other phone numbers. It also features a unified voice mail service.

* iGoogle [51] (Previously Google Personalized Homepage)

Customizable homepage, which can contain Web feeds and Google Gadgets, launched in May 2005. It was renamed to iGoogle on April 30, 2007 (previously used internally by Google).

* Joga Bonito [52]

Soccer community site, similar to services such as MySpace, in that each member has a profile, and can join groups based on shared interests. The service allows a user to meet other fans, create games and clubs, access athletes from Nike, and watch and upload video clips and photos.

* JotSpot [53]

Application wiki company that offers enterprise social software and was founded by Joe Kraus and Graham Spencer, co-founders of Excite. The product is targeted mainly to small and medium-sized businesses. It was acquired by Google on October 31, 2006.

* Notebook [54]

Web clipping application for saving online research. The tool permits users to clip text, images, and links from pages while browsing, save them online, access them from any computer, and share them with others.

* Marratech e-Meeting

Web conferencing software, used internally by Google's employees. Google acquired the software from creator Marratech on April 19, 2007. Google has not yet stated what it will do with the product.

* Orkut [55]

Social networking service, where users can list their personal and professional information, create relationships amongst friends and join communities of mutual interest. In November 2006, Google opened Orkut registration to everyone, instead of being invitation only.

* Page Creator [56]

Webpage-publishing program, which can be used to create pages and to host them on Google's servers.

* Picasa Web Albums [57]

Online photo sharing, with integration with the main Picasa program..

* Reader [58]

Web-based news aggregator, capable of reading Atom and RSS feeds. It allows the user to search, import and subscribe to feeds. The service also embeds audio enclosures in the page. Major revisions to Google Reader were made in October 2006.

* Shared Stuff [59]

Web page sharing system, incorporating a Share bookmarklet to share pages, as well as a page for viewing the most popular shared items. Pages can also be shared through third party applications, such as del.icio.us or Facebook.

* Questions and Answers [60] (Google Russia Only)

Community-driven knowledge market website. Launched on June 26, 2007 that allows users to ask and answer questions posed by other users. [61]

* YouTube [62]

Popular free video sharing Web site which lets users upload, view, and share video clips. In October 2006, Google, Inc., announced that it had reached a deal to acquire the company for $1.65 billion USD in Google's stock. The deal closed on 13 November 2006.

[edit] Development

* Code [63]

Google's site for developers interested in Google-related development. The site contains Open Source code and lists of their API services.

* Co-op [64]

Platform for users to expand and apply Google Search to specific sites and topics, using Custom Search Engine, Subscribed Links and Topics.

* Gears [65]

An extension for Firefox and a plug-in for Internet Explorer that supports offline access to web applications.

* Mashup Editor [66]

Web Mashup creation with publishing facilities, as well as syntax highlighting and debugging.

* OpenSocial [67] A set of common APIs for building social applications on many websites.

* Webmaster Tools [68] (Previously Google Sitemaps)

Sitemap submission and analysis for the Sitemaps protocol. Renamed from Google Sitemaps to cover broader features, including query statistics and robots.txt analysis.

[edit] Mapping

* Maps [69]

Mapping service that indexes streets and satellite imagery, providing driving directions and local business search.

* Mars [70]

Imagery of Mars using the Google Maps interface. Elevation, visible imagery and infrared imagery can be shown. It was released on March 13, 2006, the anniversary of the birth of astronomer Percival Lowell.

* Moon [71]

NASA imagery of the moon through the Google Maps interface. It was launched on July 20, 2005, in honor of the first manned Moon landing on July 20, 1969.

* Ride Finder [72]

Taxi, limousine and shuttle search service, using real time position of vehicles in 14 US cities. Ride Finder uses the Google Maps interface and cooperates with any car service that wishes to participate.

* Transit [73]

Public transport trip planning through the Google Maps interface. Google Transit was released on December 7, 2005, and is now fully integrated with Google Maps.

(For Google Earth, see "Standalone applications")

[edit] Search

* Accessible Search [74]

Search engine for the blind and visually impaired. It prioritises usable and accessible web sites in the search results, so the user incurs minimal distractions when browsing.

* Alerts [75]

E-mail notification service, which sends alerts based on chosen search terms, whenever there are new results. Alerts include web results, Groups results news, and video.

* Base [76]

Google submission database, that enables content owners to submit content, have it hosted and make it searchable. Information within the database is organized using attributes.

* Blog search [77]

Weblog search engine, with a continuously-updated search index. Results include all blogs, not just those published through Blogger. Results can be viewed and filtered by date.

* Book Search [78] (Previously Google Print)

Search engine for the full text of printed books. Google scans and stores in its digital database. The content that is displayed depends on the arrangement with the publishers, ranging from short extracts to entire books.

* Catalogs [79]

Search engine for over 6,600 print catalogs, which are acquired through Optical character recognition.

* Checkout [80]

Online payment processing service provided by Google aimed at simplifying the process of paying for online purchases. Webmasters can choose to implement Google Checkout as a form of payment.

* Code Search [81]

Search engine for programming code found on the Internet.

* Directory [82]

Collection of links arranged into hierarchical subcategories. The links and their categorization are from the Open Directory Project, but are sorted using PageRank.

* Directory [83] (Google China)

Navigation directory, specifically for Chinese users.

* Experimental Search [84]

Options for testing new interfaces whilst searching with Google, including Timeline views and keyboard shortcuts.

* Finance [85]

Searchable US business news, opinion, and financial data. Features include company-specific pages, blog search, interactive charts, executives information, discussion groups and a portfolio.

* Groups [86]

Web and e-mail discussion service and Usenet archive. Users can join a group, make a group, publish posts, track their favorite topics, write a set of group web pages updatable by members and share group files. [87]. In January, 2007, version 3 of Google Groups was released. New features include the ability to create customised pages and share files.

* Image Labeler [88]

Game that induces participants to submit valid descriptions (labels) of images in the web, in order to later improve Image Search.

* Image Search [89]

Image search engine, with results based on the filename of the image, the link text pointing to the image and text adjacent to the image. When searching, a thumbnail of each matching image is displayed.

* Language Tools [90]

Collection of linguistic applications, including one that allows users to translate text or web pages from one language to another, and another that allows searching in web pages located in a specific country or written in a specific language.

* Life Search [91] (Google China)

Search engine tailored towards everyday needs, such as train times, recipes and housing.

* Movies [92]

A specialised search engine that obtains Film showing times near a user-entered location as well as providing reviews of films compiled from several different websites,

* Music Trends [93]

Music ranking of the songs played with iTunes, Winamp, Windows Media Player and Yahoo Music. Trends are generated by Google Talk's "share your music status" feature.

* News [94]

Automated news compilation service and search engine for news. There are versions of the aggregator for more than 20 languages. While the selection of news stories is fully automated, the sites included are selected by human editors.

* News Archive Search [95]

Feature within Google News, that allows users to browse articles from over 200 years ago.

* Patent Search [96]

Search engine to search through millions of patents, each result with its own page, including drawings, claims and citations.

* Product Search [97] (Previously Froogle)

Price engine that searches online stores, including auctions, for products.

* Rebang [98] (Google China)

Google China's search trend site, similar to Google Zeitgeist. Currently part of Google Labs.

* Scholar [99]

Search engine for the full text of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and scholarly fields. Today, the index includes virtually all peer-reviewed journals available online, except those published by Elsevier, the world's largest scientific publisher.

* SearchMash [100]

Search engine that means to "test innovative user interfaces." Among its features are the ability to display image results on the same page as web results, feedback about features, and continuous scrolling results. Aside from its privacy policy and terms of service, there is no Google branding on the site.

* Sets [101]

List of items generated when the user enters a few examples. For example, entering "Green, Purple, Red" produces the list "Green, Purple, Red, Blue, Black, White, Yellow, Orange, Brown."

* SMS [102]

Mobile phone short message service offered by Google in several countries, including the USA, Japan, Canada, Germany, Spain and formerly the UK. It allows search queries to be sent as a text message. The results are sent as a reply, with no premium charge for the service.

* Suggest [103]

Auto-completion in search results while typing to give popular searches.

* University Search [104]

Listings for search engines for University websites.

* U.S. Government Search [105]

Search engine and Personalized Homepage that exclusively draws from sites with a .gov TLD.

* Video [106]

Video search engine and online store for clips internally submitted by companies and the general public. Google's main video partnerships include agreements with CBS, NHL and the NBA. Also searches videos posted on YouTube.

* Voice Local Search [107]

Non-premium phone service for searching and contacting local businesses

* Web History [108] (Previously Google Search History / Personalized Search)

Web page tracking, which records Google searches, Web pages, images, videos, music and more. It also includes Bookmarks, search trends and item recommendations.

* Web Search [109]

Web search engine, which is Google's core product. It was the company's first creation, coming out of beta on September 21, 1999, and remains their most popular and famous service. It receives 1 billion requests a day and is the most used search engine on the Internet.

[edit] Statistics

* Analytics [110]

Traffic statistics generator for defined websites, with strong AdWords integration. Webmasters can optimize their ad campaigns, based on the statistics that are given. Analytics is based on the Urchin software and the new version released in May 2007 integrates improvements based on Measure Map.

* Gapminder [111]

Data trend viewing platform to make nations' statistics accessible on the internet in an animated, interactive graph form.

* Trends [112]

Graph plotting application for Web Search statistics, showing the popularity of particular search terms over time. Multiple terms can be shown at once. Results can also be displayed by city, region or language. Related news stories are also shown.

* Zeitgeist [113]

Collection of lists of the most frequent search queries. There are weekly, monthly and yearly lists, as well as topic and country specific lists. Closed 22 May 2007 and replaced by "Hot Trends, a dynamic feature in Google Trends".

[edit] Hardware products

* Google Search Appliance [114]

Hardware device that can be hooked to corporate intranets for indexing/searching of company files.

* Google Mini [115]

Reduced capacity and less expensive version of the Google Search Appliance

[edit] Previous products

Applications that have been discontinued by Google, either because of integration with other Google products, or through lack of support.

* Answers [116]

Question and answer service, allowing users to pay researchers to answer questions. Google announced the closing of service on November 28, 2006. All past discussions have been publicly archived.

* Deskbar

Bar on your desktop with a minibrowser build into it. It was discontinued when a very similar feature was added to Google desktop. Some people preferred Google deskbar for its ability to add custom searching and the mini-browser so you wouldn't have to open an actual window. The last release, version 9.95, had a .NET plugin for it.

* Free Search [117]

Free code to embed either web search or site search into another website. Discontinued in favour of Google Co-op's Custom Search Engine.

* Local

Local listings service, before it was integrated with mapping. The merged service was then called Google Local, which was further renamed to Google Maps due to popular demand.

* Personalized Search

Search results personalization, now fully merged with Google Accounts and Web History.

* Public Service Search [118]

Non-commercial organization service, which included free SiteSearch, traffic reports and unlimited search queries. Discontinued in February 2007 and re-directed to Google Co-op.

* Related Links

Script that places units for related Web content, including pages, searches and videos, on the owner's Website, through embedded code. Discontinued in July 2007.

* Spreadsheets

Spreadsheet management application, before it was integrated with Writely to form Google Docs & Spreadsheets. It was announced on 6 June 2006.

* Voice Search [119]

Automated voice system for searching the Web using the telephone. Now called Google Voice Local Search [120], it is currently integrated on the Google Mobile web site [121].

* Writely

Web-based word processor created by software company Upstartle, who were acquired by Google on March 9, 2006. On October 10, 2006, Writely was merged into Google Docs & Spreadsheets.

* Google X

Re-designed Google search homepage, using a Mac OS style interface. It appeared in Google Labs, but was removed the following day for undisclosed reasons.

Google Your Mind

2007-10-28T21:42:00.000-07:00

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG and LSE: GGEA) is an American public corporation, specializing in Internet search and online advertising. The company is based in Mountain View, California, and has 15,916 full-time employees (as of September 30, 2007).[3] Google's mission statement is, "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."[4] Google's corporate philosophy includes statements such as "Don't be evil", and "Work should be challenging and the challenge should be fun", illustrating a somewhat relaxed corporate culture. Google was co-founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were students at Stanford University and the company was first incorporated as a privately held company on September 7, 1998. Google's initial public offering took place on August 19, 2004, raising $1.67 billion, making it worth $23 billion. Through a series of new product developments, acquisitions and partnerships, the company has expanded its initial search and advertising business into other areas, including web-based email, online mapping, office productivity, and video sharing, among others.

History

Google in 1998Main article: History of Google
Google began as a research project in January 1996 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two Ph.D. students at Stanford University, California.[5] They hypothesized that a search engine that analyzed the relationships between websites would produce better results than existing techniques, which ranked results according to the number of times the search term appeared on a page.[6] Their search engine was originally nicknamed "BackRub" because the system checked backlinks to estimate a site's importance.[7] A small search engine called Rankdex was already exploring a similar strategy.[8] Convinced that the pages with the most links to them from other highly relevant web pages must be the most relevant pages associated with the search, Page and Brin tested their thesis as part of their studies, and laid the foundation for their search engine. Originally the search engine used the Stanford University website with the domain google.stanford.edu. The domain google.com was registered on September 15, 1997,[9] and the company was incorporated as Google Inc. on September 7, 1998 at a friend's garage in Menlo Park, California. The total initial investment raised for the new company eventually amounted to almost $1.1 million, including a $100,000 check by Andy Bechtolsheim, one of the founders of Sun Microsystems.[10]

In March 1998, the company moved into offices in Palo Alto, home to several other noted Silicon Valley technology startups.[11] After quickly outgrowing two other sites, the company leased a complex of buildings in Mountain View at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway from Silicon Graphics (SGI) in 2003.[12] The company has remained at this location ever since, and the complex has since become known as the Googleplex (a play on the word googolplex, a 1 followed by a googol zeros). In 2006, Google bought the property from SGI for $319 million.[13]

The Google search engine attracted a loyal following among the growing number of Internet users, who liked its simple design and usability.[14] In 2000, Google began selling advertisements associated with search keywords.[5] The ads were text-based to maintain an uncluttered page design and to maximize page loading speed.[5] Keywords were sold based on a combination of price bid and clickthroughs, with bidding starting at $.05 per click.[5] This model of selling keyword advertising was pioneered by Goto.com (later renamed Overture Services, before being acquired by Yahoo! and rebranded as Yahoo! Search Marketing).[15][16][17] While many of its dot-com rivals failed in the new Internet marketplace, Google quietly rose in stature while generating revenue.[5]

The name "Google" originated from a misspelling of "googol,"[18][19] which refers to 10100 (the number represented by a 1 followed by one-hundred zeros). Having found its way increasingly into everyday language, the verb "google", was added to the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary in 2006, meaning "to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet."[20][21]

A patent describing part of Google's ranking mechanism (PageRank) was granted on September 4, 2001.[22] The patent was officially assigned to Stanford University and lists Lawrence Page as the inventor.

Financing and initial public offering
The first funding for Google as a company was secured in the form of a USD100,000 contribution from Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, given to a corporation which did not yet exist.[23] Around six months later, a much larger round of funding was announced, with the major investors being rival venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital.[23]

Google's initial public offering took place on August 19, 2004. 19,605,052 shares were offered at a price of $85 per share.[24] Of that, 14,142,135 (another mathematical reference as v2 ˜ 1.4142135) were floated by Google and 5,462,917 by selling stockholders. The sale raised $1.67 billion, and gave Google a market capitalization of more than $23 billion.[25] The vast majority of Google's 271 million shares remained under Google's control. Many of Google's employees became instant paper millionaires. Yahoo!, a competitor of Google, also benefited from the IPO because it owned 8.4 million shares of Google as of August 9, 2004, ten days before the IPO.[26]

Google's post-IPO stock performance has been very good as well, with shares surging to $500 by 2007, due to strong sales and earnings in the advertising market, as well as the release of new features like the desktop search function and personalized home page.[27] The surge in stock price is fueled primarily by individual investors, as opposed to large institutional investors and mutual funds.[27]

The company is listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the ticker symbol GOOG.

Growth
While the company's primary market is in the web content arena, Google has begun to experiment with other markets, such as radio and print publications. On January 17, 2006, Google announced that it had purchased the radio advertising company dMarc, which provides an automated system that allows companies to advertise on the radio.[28] This will allow Google to combine two niche advertising media—the Internet and radio—with Google's ability to laser-focus on the tastes of consumers. Google has also begun an experiment in selling advertisements from its advertisers in offline newspapers and magazines, with select advertisements in the Chicago Sun-Times.[29] They have been filling unsold space in the newspaper that would have normally been used for in-house advertisements.

Google was added to the S&P 500 index on March 30, 2006. Google replaced Burlington Resources, a major oil producer based in Houston which was acquired by ConocoPhillips.

Philanthropy
In 2004, Google formed a non-profit philanthropic wing, Google.org, giving it a starting fund of $1 billion.[30] The express mission of the organization is to help with the issues of climate change (see also global warming), global public health, and global poverty. Among its first projects is to develop a viable plug-in hybrid electric vehicle that can attain 100 mpg. The current director is Dr. Larry Brilliant.[31]

Acquisitions
See also: List of Google acquisitions
Since 2001, Google has acquired several small start-up companies, often consisting of innovative teams and products. One of the earlier companies that Google bought was Pyra Labs. They were the creators of Blogger, a weblog publishing platform, first launched in 1999. This acquisition led to many premium features becoming free. Pyra Labs was originally formed by Evan Williams, yet he left Google in 2004. In early 2006, Google acquired Upstartle, a company responsible for the online word processor, Writely. The technology in this product was used by Google to eventually create Google Docs & Spreadsheets.

In February 2006, software company Adaptive Path sold Measure Map, a weblog statistics application, to Google. Registration to the service has since been temporarily disabled. The last update regarding the future of Measure Map was made on April 6, 2006 and outlined many of the service's known issues.[32]

In late 2006, Google bought online video site YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock.[33] Shortly after, on October 31, 2006, Google announced that it had also acquired JotSpot, a developer of wiki technology for collaborative Web sites.[34]

On April 13, 2007, Google reached an agreement to acquire DoubleClick. Google agreed to buy the company for $3.1 billion.[35]

On July 9, 2007, Google announced that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire enterprise messaging security and compliance company Postini.[36]

Partnerships
In 2005, Google entered into partnerships with other companies and government agencies to improve production and services. Google announced a partnership with NASA Ames Research Center to build up 1,000,000 square feet (93,000 m²) of offices and work on research projects involving large-scale data management, nanotechnology, distributed computing, and the entrepreneurial space industry.[37] Google also entered into a partnership with Sun Microsystems in October to help share and distribute each other's technologies.[38] The company entered into a partnership with Time Warner's AOL,[39] to enhance each other's video search services.

Also in 2005, the company became a major financial investor of the new .mobi top-level domain for mobile devices, in conjunction with several other companies, including Microsoft, Nokia, Ericcson, and others.[40] In September of 2007, Google launched, "Adsense for Mobile", a service to its publishing partners providing the ability to monetize their mobile websites through the targeted placement of mobile text ads,[41] and acquired the mobile social networking site, Zingku.mobi, to "provide people worldwide with direct access to Google applications, and ultimately the information they want and need, right from their mobile devices."[42]

In 2006, Google and News Corp.'s Fox Interactive Media entered into a $900 million agreement to provide search and advertising on the popular social networking site, MySpace.[43]

Products
Main article: List of Google products
Google has created services and tools for the general public and business environment alike; including Web applications, advertising networks and solutions for businesses.

Advertising
Most of Google's revenue is derived from advertising programs. For the 2006 fiscal year, the company reported $10.492 billion in total advertising revenues and only $112 million in licensing and other revenues.[44] Google AdWords allows Web advertisers to display advertisements in Google's search results and the Google Content Network, through either a cost-per-click or cost-per-view scheme. Google AdSense website owners can also display adverts on their own site, and earn money every time ads are clicked.

Applications
Google is well-known for its web search service, which is a major factor of the company's success. As of August 2007, Google is the most used search engine on the web with a 53.6% market share, ahead of Yahoo! (19.9%) and Live Search (12.9%).[45] Google indexes billions of Web pages, so that users can search for the information they desire, through the use of keywords and operators. Google has also employed the Web Search technology into other search services, including Image Search, Google News, the price comparison site Google Product Search, the interactive Usenet archive Google Groups, Google Maps and more.

In 2004, Google launched its own free web-based email service, known as Gmail.[46] Gmail features spam-filtering technology and the capability to use Google technology to search email. The service generates revenue by displaying advertisements from the AdWords service that are tailored to the content of the email messages displayed on screen.

In early 2006, the company launched Google Video, which not only allows users to search and view freely available videos but also offers users and media publishers the ability to publish their content, including television shows on CBS, NBA basketball games, and music videos.[47] In August 2007, Google announced that it would shut down its video rental and sale program and offer refunds and Google Checkout credits to consumers who had purchased videos to own.

Google has also developed several desktop applications, including Google Earth, an interactive mapping program powered by satellite and aerial imagery that covers the vast majority of the planet. Google Earth is generally considered to be remarkably accurate and extremely detailed. Many major cities have such detailed images that one can zoom in close enough to see vehicles and pedestrians clearly. Consequently, there have been some concerns about national security implications. Specifically, some countries and militaries contend the software can be used to pinpoint with near-precision accuracy the physical location of critical infrastructure, commercial and residential buildings, bases, government agencies, and so on. However, the satellite images are not necessarily frequently updated, and all of them are available at no charge through other products and even government sources (NASA and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, for example.) Some counter this argument by stating that Google Earth makes it easier to access and research the images.

Many other products are available through Google Labs, which is a collection of incomplete applications that are still being tested for use by the general public.

Google has promoted their products in various ways. In London, Google Space was set-up in Heathrow Airport, showcasing several products, including Gmail, Google Earth and Picasa.[48][49] Also, a similar page was launched for American college students, under the name College Life, Powered by Google.[50]

In 2007, some reports surfaced that Google was planning the release of its own mobile phone, possibly a competitor to Apple's iPhone.[51][52][53] The project may be a collaboration between Google and Orange, HTC, Samsung, or another manufacturer. However, very little is known about the project and most of the information available is speculation. In October 2007, Google SMS service is launched in India allowing users to get business listings, movie showtimes and information by sending an SMS message.[54]

Enterprise products
In 2007, Google launched Google Apps Premier Edition, a version of Google Apps targeted primarily at the business user. It includes such extras as more disk space for e-mail, API access, and premium support, for a price of USD50 per user per year. A large implementation of Google Apps with 38,000 users is at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada.[55]

Platform
Main article: Google platform
Google's services are run on several server farms, each consisting of thousands of low-cost commodity computers running stripped-down versions of Linux. While the company does not provide detailed information about its hardware, a 2006 estimate consisted of over 450,000 servers, racked up in clusters located in data centers around the world.[56]

Corporate affairs and culture

A license plate seen in the Googleplex parking lot.Google is particularly known for its relaxed corporate culture, reminiscent of the Dot-com boom. In January 2007, it was cited by Fortune Magazine as the #1 (of 100) best company to work for.[57] Google's corporate philosophy is based on many casual principles including, "You can make money without doing evil", "You can be serious without a suit," and "Work should be challenging and the challenge should be fun." A complete list of corporate fundamentals is available on Google's website.[58] Google's relaxed corporate culture can also be seen externally through their holiday variations of the Google logo.

Google has been criticized for having salaries below industry standards[59]. For example, some system administrators earn no more than $35,000 per year – considered to be quite low for the Bay Area job market.[60] However, Google's stock performance following its IPO has enabled many early employees to be competitively compensated by participation in the corporation's remarkable equity growth.[61] Google implemented other employee incentives in 2005, such as the Google Founders' Award, in addition to offering higher salaries to new employees. Google's workplace amenities, culture, global popularity, and strong brand recognition have also attracted potential applicants.

After the company's IPO in August 2004, it was reported that founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, and CEO Eric Schmidt, requested that their base salary be cut to $1.00.[62] Subsequent offers by the company to increase their salaries have been turned down, primarily because, "their primary compensation continues to come from returns on their ownership stakes in Google. As significant stockholders, their personal wealth is tied directly to sustained stock price appreciation and performance, which provides direct alignment with stockholder interests."[62] Prior to 2004, Schmidt was making $250,000 per year, and Page and Brin each earned a salary of $150,000.[62]

They have all declined recent offers of bonuses and increases in compensation by Google's board of directors. In a 2007 report of the United States' richest people, Forbes reported that Sergey Brin and Larry Page were tied for #5 with a net worth of $18.5 billion each.[63]

Googleplex

The GoogleplexMain article: Googleplex
As a play on Google's name, its headquarters, in Mountain View, California, is referred to as "the Googleplex" — a googolplex being 1 followed by a googol of zeros, and the HQ being a complex of buildings (cf. multiplex, cineplex, etc). The lobby is decorated with a piano, lava lamps, old server clusters, and a projection of search queries on the wall. The hallways are full of exercise balls and bicycles. Each employee has access to the corporate recreation center. Recreational amenities are scattered throughout the campus and include a workout room with weights and rowing machines, locker rooms, washers and dryers, a massage room, assorted video games, Foosball, a baby grand piano, a pool table, and ping pong. In addition to the rec room, there are snack rooms stocked with various cereals, gummy bears, toffee, licorice, cashews, yogurt, carrots, fresh fruit, and dozens of different drinks including fresh juice, soda, and make your own cappuccino.[citation needed]

Sign at the GoogleplexIn 2006, Google moved into 311,000 square feet (28,900 m²) of office space in New York City, at 111 Eighth Ave. in Manhattan.[64] The office was specially designed and built for Google and houses its largest advertising sales team, which has been instrumental in securing large partnerships, most recently deals with MySpace and AOL.[64] In 2003, they added an engineering staff in New York City, which has been responsible for more than 100 engineering projects, including Google Maps, Google Spreadsheets, and others.[64] It is estimated that the building costs Google $10 million per year to rent and is similar in design and functionality to its Mountain View headquarters, including Foosball, air hockey, and ping-pong tables, as well as a video game area.[64] By late 2006, Google also established a new headquarters for its AdWords division in Ann Arbor, Michigan.[65]

The size of Google's search system is presently unknown; the best estimates place the total number of the companies servers at 450,000, spread over twenty five locations throughout the world, including major operations centers in Ireland and Atlanta, Georgia. Google is also in the process of constructing a major operations center in The Dalles, Oregon, on the banks of the Columbia River. The site, also referred to by the media as Project 02, was chosen due to the availability of inexpensive hydroelectric power and a large surplus of fiber optic cable, left over from the dot com boom of the late 1990s. The computing center is estimated to be as large as two football fields, and it has created hundreds of construction jobs, causing local real estate prices to increase 40%. Upon completion, the center is expected to create 60 to 200 permanent jobs in the town of 12,000 people.[66]

Google is also making steps to ensure that their operations are environmentally sound. In October 2006, the company announced plans to install thousands of solar panels to provide up to 1.6 megawatts of electricity, enough to satisfy approximately 30% of the campus' energy needs.[67] The system will be the largest solar power system constructed on a U.S. corporate campus and one of the largest on any corporate site in the world.[67] In June 2007, Google announced that they plan to become carbon neutral by 2008, which includes investing in energy efficiency, renewable energy sources, and purchasing carbon offsets, such as investing in projects like capturing and burning methane from animal waste at Mexican and Brazilian farms.[68]

"Twenty percent" time
All Google engineers are encouraged to spend 20% of their work time (one day per week) on projects that interest them. Some of Google's newer services, such as Gmail, Google News, Orkut, and AdSense originated from these independent endeavors.[69] In a talk at Stanford University, Marissa Mayer, Google's Vice President of Search Products and User Experience, stated that her analysis showed that half of the new product launches originated from the 20% time.[70]

Easter eggs and April Fool's Day jokes
Main article: Google's hoaxes
Google has a tradition of creating April Fool's Day jokes — such as Google MentalPlex, which allegedly featured the use of mental power to search the web.[71] In 2002, they claimed that pigeons were the secret behind their growing search engine.[72] In 2004, they featured Google Lunar (which claimed to feature jobs on the moon),[73] and in 2005, a fictitious brain-boosting drink, termed Google Gulp was announced.[74] In 2006, they came up with Google Romance, a hypothetical online dating service.[75] In 2007, Google announced two joke products. The first was a free wireless Internet service called TiSP (Toilet Internet Service Provider) [76] in which one obtained a connection by flushing one end of a fiber-optic cable down their toilet and waiting only an hour for a "Plumbing Hardware Dispatcher (PHD)" to connect it to the Internet.[76] Additionally, Google's Gmail page displayed an announcement for Gmail Paper, which allows users of their free email service to have email messages printed and shipped to a snail mail address.[77]

Some thought the announcement of Gmail in 2004 around April Fool's Day (as well as the doubling of Gmail's storage space to two gigabytes in 2005) was a joke, although both of these turned out to be genuine announcements. In 2005, a comedic graph depicting Google's goal of "infinity plus one" GB of storage was featured on the Gmail homepage.

Google's services contain a number of Easter eggs; for instance, the Language Tools page offers the search interface in the Swedish Chef's "Bork bork bork," Pig Latin, ”Hacker” (actually leetspeak), Elmer Fudd, and Klingon.[78] In addition, the search engine calculator provides the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything from Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.[79] As Google's search box can be used as a unit converter (as well as a calculator), some non-standard units are built in, such as the Smoot. Google also routinely modifies its logo in accordance with various holidays or special events throughout the year, such as Christmas, Mother's Day, or various birthdays of notable individuals.[80]

IPO and culture
Many people speculated that Google's IPO would inevitably lead to changes in the company's culture,[81] because of shareholder pressure for employee benefit reductions and short-term advances, or because a large number of the company's employees would suddenly become millionaires on paper. In a report given to potential investors, co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page promised that the IPO would not change the company's culture.[82] Later Mr. Page said, "We think a lot about how to maintain our culture and the fun elements. We spent a lot of time getting our offices right. We think it's important to have a high density of people. People are packed together everywhere. We all share offices. We like this set of buildings because it's more like a densely packed university campus than a typical suburban office park."[83]

However, many analysts are finding that as Google grows, the company is becoming more "corporate". In 2005, articles in The New York Times and other sources began suggesting that Google had lost its anti-corporate, no evil philosophy[84][85][86] In an effort to maintain the company's unique culture, Google has designated a Chief Culture Officer in 2006, who also serves as the Director of Human Resources. The purpose of the Chief Culture Officer is to develop and maintain the culture and work on ways to keep true to the core values that the company was founded on in the beginning — a flat organization, a lack of hierarchy, a collaborative environment.[87]