Which company owns the search engine Google?

Alphabet owns the search engine Google.

Alphabet Inc. became Google’s parent company in 2015 after a corporate restructuring. Google remained the largest business within Alphabet, while separate units were created for activities such as autonomous vehicles and other long-term projects.

Google operates the world’s best-known web search engine and also includes products such as YouTube, Android, Google Maps, and Google Cloud. Because Google is the public-facing brand, people sometimes name Google rather than Alphabet when asked for the parent company.

Alphabet is the publicly traded corporation whose shares investors buy. Google LLC is a subsidiary within that structure, so the two names are closely connected but are not interchangeable in a corporate-ownership question.