Google was founded in 1998 as an online search engine and became Alphabet’s main subsidiary.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google in September 1998 after developing a search system at Stanford University. Their early technology ranked web pages partly by analyzing links between them, helping Google stand out from many earlier search engines.
Google reorganized under a new parent company, Alphabet Inc., in 2015. Google remained the central operating company, covering search, advertising, YouTube, Android, and other major products, while Alphabet placed several newer ventures into separate businesses.
Google became one of the world’s most valuable companies because online advertising turned search traffic into a highly scalable business. Its market capitalization is therefore often discussed alongside Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Nvidia. Google and Alphabet are related but are not interchangeable names: Alphabet is the parent company, while Google is its principal subsidiary.