Google, founded in 1998, developed the search engine that became the core of its Alphabet corporate group.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google while they were doctoral students at Stanford University. Their research project, originally called BackRub, ranked web pages partly by analyzing links between them. Google was incorporated on September 4, 1998.
The company expanded from web search into advertising, email, maps, video, mobile software, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. In 2015, Google became a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., a holding company created to separate Google’s main internet products from other ventures.
Google and Alphabet are related but not interchangeable names. Google is the operating company and brand behind Search, YouTube, Android, and other major products; Alphabet is the publicly traded parent whose shares represent the broader corporate group.