Wiekes Weetjes: unusual facts about Google
This week, the news came out that TikTok is no longer the most visited site worldwide. They held that honor last year, but they have been dethroned less than a year later. By whom? Google, of course. Well, what would we be without Google, the all-knowing oracle? I honestly search for almost everything on it. In the editorial office, I am sometimes called the whizzkid of HTML script (for the back-end of our site), because I have a solution for everything. Now I hope none of my colleagues are reading this, because then I will completely be exposed, because I google everything. You can find everything on it. So here’s a bit of an ode to Google, in the form of ten facts you probably didn’t know.
1. Do you know that other search engine, Bing? The most searched word on it is ‘Google’
The small group of people who use Bing would prefer to leave it as well.
2. Google had a massive outage of five minutes in 2013, which caused internet usage worldwide to drop by 40 percent
Conclusion: we cannot live without Google.
3. In 1997, they wanted to sell Google to Yahoo for just one million
Wow, those people at Yahoo must be regretting that now. They refused this offer and are still crying about it, so the rumors go.
4. Jennifer Lopez is the only reason Google Images exists
Do we remember that Versace dress worn by J.Lo at the Grammys? Yep, that was the reason to start Google Images. That dress literally broke the internet because so many people were searching for it. Google immediately saw opportunities: what if people could also search for photos? The rest is history.
5. Fifteen percent of daily Google searches are new and unique
Isn't that bizarrely high? Every second, there are about 70,000 searches on Google (including this one to google this figure). That amounts to 227 million per hour and 5.4 trillion per day. Of that, fifteen percent is completely new. Bizarre.
6. This year, ‘Facebook’ is the most googled word
No less than 203,900,000 times it was searched for. In second place is YouTube, followed by Amazon, and in fourth place is Wordle. I found that quite surprising: I suddenly see Wordle a lot on TikTok, but I have never played it. In fifth place? The word ‘Google’. Who searches for Google on Google? Still about 128,500,000 times it was googled.
7. Google reviews account for about 57.5 percent of all reviews worldwide
I increasingly look at Google reviews, especially when I want to order or buy something from a company. But restaurants nowadays also cannot do without (positive) Google reviews.
8. The first ‘office’ of Google New York was in a Starbucks
...And consisted of one person, who handled sales. He did this from a random Starbucks in New York. Nowadays, they have a huge building at 111 8th Ave, so they have made quite a leap.
9. The first name of Google was ‘BackRub’
Google sounds a lot better, BackRub sounds more like a shady massage parlor, in my opinion. Good name change as far as I'm concerned. Google is named after the word ‘googol’, a mathematical term for a number to the hundredth power.
10. Google often has funny Easter Eggs that you can still find today
Just take a look at Google Mirror.
