When you think about the internet it’s hard not to talk about Google. Let’s face it, you know you’ve made it when your brand name’s become a verb.

As Gmail turned 10 last week we thought it fitting to take a look at the history of the company that changed the way we do virtually everything online.

One big webby family

The domain name Google was first registered on September 15 1997, making the company 16 years old.

The next major rollouts for the company were Google AdWords (2000) and Gmail (2004). Gmail now has over 350 million users, with 5000 new users signing up every day.

In 2006 Google bought YouTube, which is now the second largest search engine in the world with over 1 billion monthly users.

However everything Google touched hasn't turned to gold – case in point the struggling Google+.

Search stats

On average Google processes close to 6 billion search queries every day, and the company commands 67 per cent of the US search market.

However only 50 per cent of these searches are secure.

Google people

For all its influence Google employs a modestly sized workforce of 54,000.

In 2012 the company spent US$9 billion on Research and Design, while Google also paid out US$2 million in rewards to users who spotted and fixed bugs in its software.

In 2013 Google spent US$14.1 million on lobbying.

Web workhorse

There are over 191 million monthly unique visitors to Google sites.

To give some idea of how many people are using these sites, when Google recently suffered a five minute outage over 40 per cent of web traffic was affected.

If you enjoyed this article then subscribe FREE to the twice weekly SMK Digital Bulletin, click here now or visit www.smk.net.au/subscribe.

Also, click here download a FREE Social Media Policy Research Paper – worth $495. This FREE in-depth 17 page paper features insights from both communications and legal experts at the likes of: National Australia Bank (NAB), Edelman, Corrs Chambers Westgarth, Social@Ogilvy, SMK – Social Media Knowledge, The Victorian Electoral Commission. Or visit www.smk.net.au/downloads for details.