4 things you didn't know about Google
Thursday 12 November 2009
TAGS: Google | Lists | Search engine optimisation
Neil M Hancock, Search Marketing Manager at Silverbean highlights four interesting facts about Google that I bet you didn’t know!
1. Google is officially the best company to work for!
For the second year running Google has been voted the best company to work for by Fortune magazine.
Google fully believe that work and play can co-exist and so their European HQ in Zurich, Switzerland has slides and fireman’s poles to allow swift access between floors and each room is full of ‘chill-out’ zones with the requisite ‘bean-bag’ meeting areas. Whiteboards are also everywhere, allowing ideas to be written down wherever they are thought up.
Employees are actively encouraged to spend 1 hour a week working on a project of their own choice. This is all on top of the great benefits employee’s get. It costs Google $72 Million a year just on food as each employee gets 2 free meals a day from over 10 gourmet cafeteria’s. They are also offered free skiing trips to the Sierra Mountains and on-site fitness centre and on-site doctors.
Oh, and did I mention that it’s clearly working as they have made millionaires out of over 1,000 employees in a just a decade!
2. ‘I’m feeling lucky’ costs Google $110 Million a year
Google’s ‘I’m feeling lucky’ button actually costs Google over $110 million a year in lost advertising revenue. By clicking on the button you can bypass their search results page and be taken directly to the first organic listing. Approximately 1% of users click on this button costing Google $110 Million...and if you’ve done the maths that $11Billion a year through advertising!
3. Google loves a joke
It appears that Google has a sense of humour! They have released themed versions of their search engine in Klingon, Pirate and even Pig Latin. They are also notorious for their April Fools pranks and hidden jokes. In 2005, Google claimed to have released, ‘Google Gulp’, a beverage which could optimise one’s use of the Google search engine by increasing the drinker’s intelligence. It was claimed this boost was achieved through real-time analysis of the user’s DNA and carefully tailored adjustments to neurotransmitters in the brain.
4. The name Google is actually a misspelling
The name that we all recognise today was actually created from a misspelling of the term ‘googol’, which is the number 1 followed by one-hundred zero’s. This theme has been continued when they named their Silicon Valley offices Googleplex, which is a play on the word googolplex, which is a 1 followed by a googol of zeros.
Neil M Hancock is the Search Marketing Manager at Silverbean. If you have any questions or would like to discuss how Silverbean can help you achieve your marketing objectives through an SEO and Link Building campaign; please contact our resident SEO expert using one of the following.
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