Google is an American technology company founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, best known for developing the world's dominant internet search engine and a wide range of other digital products.
Page and Brin developed Google's search algorithm while graduate students at Stanford University, focused on ranking web pages based on the number and quality of links pointing to them, a significant improvement over existing search engines at the time.
The company has since expanded far beyond search, developing products including Gmail, Google Maps, the Android mobile operating system, and Google Cloud, while its advertising business became one of the most profitable in the world.
Google restructured under a parent company called Alphabet Inc. in 2015, allowing its various ventures, including autonomous vehicle research and life sciences, to operate with greater independence from its core search and advertising business.