Alphabet is the stock-market parent company that owns Google, including the Google search engine.
Alphabet was created in 2015 during a corporate restructuring. Google became a subsidiary, while Alphabet became the publicly traded holding company for Google and several other businesses and projects.
The reorganization separated Google’s core internet products from “Other Bets,” a group that has included ventures such as Waymo and Verily. Google remains by far the best-known part of the group and supplies most of its revenue through advertising and related services.
A common mix-up is to answer Google when a question asks for the listed parent. Google is the operating company and brand; Alphabet is the corporate entity whose shares are traded under the symbols GOOGL and GOOG.