An Inside Look at Google - Working at Google
Google began in January 1996 as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were both PhD students at Stanford University in California In March 1999, the company moved its offices to Palo Alto, California, home to several other noted Silicon Valley technology startups.The next year, against Page and Brin's initial opposition toward an advertising-funded search engine, Google began selling advertisements associated with search keywords. In order to maintain an uncluttered page design and increase speed, advertisements were solely text-based. Keywords were sold based on a combination of price bids and click-throughs, with bidding starting at five cents per click.This model of selling keyword advertising was first pioneered by Goto.com, an Idealab spin-off created by Bill Gross.When the company changed names to Overture Services, it sued Google over alleged infringements of the company's pay-per-click and bidding patents. Overture Services would later be bought b