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In their blog posting Google engineers explain:
Google downloads the web continuously, collecting updated page information and re-
processing the entire web-link graph several times per day. This graph of one trillion URLs
is similar to a map made up of one trillion intersections. So multiple times every day, we
do the computational equivalent of fully exploring every intersection of every road in the
United States. Except it’d be a map about 50,000 times as big as the US, with 50,000
times as many roads and intersections.

Google no longer publishes the number of pages indexed on its home page, perhaps due to
accusations that it is ‘evil big brother’; however, it is generally reckoned to exceed 10 billion.

Case Study 3.1 Innovation at Google

Context Google Image Search
Google Book Search
In addition to being the largest search engine on planet
Google Scholar
Earth, mediating the searches of tens of billions of
Google Base. Lets content owners submit content
searches daily, Google is an innovator. All online
that they want to share on Google web sites.
marketers should follow Google to see the latest
Google Webmaster Tools. Provides information to
approaches it is trialling.
webmasters to help them enhance their understanding
Google’s Mission of how their web sites interact with the Google search
engine. Content owners can submit sitemaps and
Google’s mission is encapsulated in the statement ‘to geotargeting information through Google Webmaster
organize the world’s information ... and make it univer- Tools to improve search quality.
sally accessible and useful’. Google explains that it
Google Co-op and Custom Search. Tailored version
believes that the most effective, and ultimately the most
of the search engine.
profitable, way to accomplish its mission is to put the
Google Video and YouTube
needs of its users first. Offering a high-quality user
Google Docs. Edit documents, spreadsheets, and
experience has led to strong word-of-mouth promotion
presentations from anywhere using a browser.
and strong traffic growth.
Google Calendar
Putting users first is reflected in three key commit-
Gmail
ments illustrated in the Google SEC filing:
Google Reader. Google Reader is a free service that
1 We will do our best to provide the most relevant lets users subscribe to feeds and receive updates from
and useful search results possible, independent of multiple web sites in a single interface. Google Reader
financial incentives. Our search results will be also allows users to share content with others, and
objective and we will not accept payment for inclu- function with many types of media and reading-styles.
sion or ranking in them.
Orkut – a social network
2 We will do our best to provide the most relevant Blogger. Blogger is a web-based publishing tool that
and useful advertising. Advertisements should not lets web users publish blogs.
be an annoying interruption. If any element on a Google Desktop. Search own local content.
search result page is influenced by payment to us, Picasa. Picasa is a free service that allows users to
we will make it clear to our users. view, manage and share their photos.
Google GEO – Google Maps, Earth and Local
3 We will never stop working to improve our user
Google Checkout provides a single login for buying
experience, our search technology and other
online. On 1 February 2008, Google began charging
important areas of information organization.
merchants who use Google Checkout 2% of the
The range of Google services is well known: transaction amount plus $0.20 per transaction to the
extent these fees exceed 10 times the amount they
Google Web Search
Movie, Music and Weather Information spend on AdWords advertising.
News, Finance, Maps, Image, Book and Groups Google Mobile, Maps, Mobile, Blogger and Gmail are
Information all available on mobile devices.