Larry Page and Sergey Brin began developing the search engine in 1996 at Stanford University. The project was originally named BackRub because it checked backlinks to determine site importance.
As of 2025, Google Search holds ninety percent of the global search engine market share. Approximately twenty-four point one percent of traffic comes from the United States alone.
The Knowledge Graph launched in May 2012 to answer roughly one-third of monthly searches by then. It provides structured information directly on result pages rather than just links.
In August 2024, Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google held an illegal monopoly over internet search. The court found payments to phone makers and browser developers secured default status for the company.
Universal Search launched on the 16th of May 2007, merging news, images, videos, and maps into single result pages. Marissa Mayer described this as breaking down walls between separate properties.