DIGIVESTASI - Google: The Origin of the Name of the World's Giant Search Engine. Google is now known as the world's largest and most popular search engine company. However, many are unaware of the origins of its unique name.

A question on the website Quora, "Is Google an acronym?" sparked various theories regarding the name of the company founded by Sergey Brin and Larry Page in 1998.

Some incorrect theories emerged, one of which suggested that Google stood for "Global Organization of Oriented Group Language of Earth." However, it turns out that Google is not an acronym but a play on the word "Googol." Googol is a mathematical term referring to the number 10 raised to the power of 100, or the number 1 followed by 100 zeros.

According to detikInet on Tuesday (June 18, 2024), the term Googol was coined in 1920 by Milton Sirotta, the nine-year-old nephew of mathematician Edward Kasner. Milton frequently referred to this number in the book "Mathematics and the Imagination," published in 1940, reasoning that such a large number deserved a similarly whimsical name.

When Larry Page and his team were discussing the name of the company, someone suggested the name Googol. Larry then asked a friend to check the availability of the domain. His friend, however, misspelled it as Google. Larry Page felt that this name was better, and thus Google Inc. was born.

Therefore, the name of the world's strongest search engine company actually originated from a typographical error (typo) in the internet search bar.

Before this, Larry and Sergey had considered naming their search engine Backrub, because the program used backlinks to perform searches. According to Stanford computer scientist David Koller, Sean Anderson, a fellow PhD student, along with Larry, used a whiteboard to brainstorm for a good name, something related to indexing a vast amount of data. Sean verbally suggested the word 'googolplex,' and Larry responded with the shorter form, 'googol.'

Once the name was decided, they had to ensure the domain's availability. This is where Sean made a significant error; he searched for the name with the spelling 'google.com,' which was available. Larry liked the name, and within hours, he registered the name google.com for himself and Sergey.

Historical records show that the domain name Google was registered on September 15, 1997.

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