Alphabet Inc. is the corporate parent of the Google search engine.
Google became the central subsidiary of Alphabet when the new holding company was created in 2015. Alphabet’s restructuring separated Google’s core internet businesses from several other ventures, while Google retained search, advertising, YouTube, Android, and related products.
A common mix-up is treating Google and Alphabet as interchangeable company names. Google is the operating company and brand most users encounter; Alphabet is its publicly traded parent corporation. Google Search began as a project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford University and was incorporated in 1998. The company’s advertising business later became a major source of Alphabet’s revenue.