Alphabet Inc.’s Class A shares trade under the ticker symbol GOOGL.
Alphabet has multiple classes of stock with different voting rights. Class A common stock carries one vote per share and trades publicly as GOOGL. Class C capital stock has no general voting rights and trades as GOOG. Class B shares are held privately by certain insiders and carry enhanced voting power, so they do not have a normal public-market ticker.
The ticker distinction dates from Google’s 2014 stock split and the 2015 creation of Alphabet as Google’s holding company. Existing Google shares were reorganized into corresponding Alphabet classes, while the familiar GOOG and GOOGL symbols continued on Nasdaq. Alphabet became the parent company of Google and several other businesses, but Google remains its largest operating subsidiary.
A frequent mistake is treating GOOG and GOOGL as interchangeable symbols. Both represent Alphabet-linked equity, but GOOGL identifies Class A shares and voting rights, whereas GOOG identifies Class C shares. The difference matters when investors compare ownership and corporate voting power.