Products and services




Search engine

Google indexes billions of web pages to allow users to search for the information they desire through the use of keywords and operators. According to comScore market research from November 2009, Google Search is the dominant search engine in the United States market, with a market share of 65.6%. In May 2017, Google enabled a new "Personal" tab in Google Search, letting users search for content in their Google accounts' various services, including email messages from Gmail and photos from Google Photos.

Google launched its Google News service in 2002, an automated service which summarizes news articles from various websites. Google also hosts Google Books, a service which searches the text found in books in its database and shows limited previews or and the full book where allowed.

Advertising

As per its 2017 Annual report, Google generates most of its revenues from advertising. This includes sales of apps, purchases made in-app, digital content products on Google and YouTube, Android and licensing and service fees, including fees received for Google Cloud offerings. Forty-six percent of this profit was from clicks (cost per clicks), amounting to US$109,652 million in 2017. This includes three principal methods, namely AdMob, AdSense (such as AdSense for Content, AdSense for Search, etc.) and DoubleClick AdExchange.

For the 2006 fiscal year, the company reported $10.492 billion in total advertising revenues and only $112 million in licensing and other revenues. In 2011, 96% of Google's revenue was derived from its advertising programs. In addition to its own algorithms for understanding search requests, Google uses technology from the company DoubleClick, to project user interest and target advertising to the search context and the user history.

In 2007, Google launched "AdSense for Mobile", taking advantage of the emerging mobile advertising market.

Google Analytics allows website owners to track where and how people use their website, for example by examining click rates for all the links on a page. Google advertisements can be placed on third-party websites in a two-part program. Google Ads allows advertisers to display their advertisements in the Google content network, through a cost-per-click scheme. The sister service, Google AdSense, allows website owners to display these advertisements on their website and earn money every time ads are clicked. One of the criticisms of this program is the possibility of click fraud, which occurs when a person or automated script clicks on advertisements without being interested in the product, causing the advertiser to pay money to Google unduly. Industry reports in 2006 claimed that approximately 14 to 20 percent of clicks were fraudulent or invalid. Google Search Console (rebranded from Google Webmaster Tools in May 2015) allows webmasters to check the sitemap, crawl rate, and for security issues of their websites, as well as optimize their website's visibility.

Consumer services

Web-based services

Google offers Gmail for email, Google Calendar for time-management and scheduling, Google Maps for mapping, navigation and satellite imagery, Google Drive for cloud storage of files, Google Docs, Sheets and Slides for productivity, Google Photos for photo storage and sharing, Google Keep for note-taking, Google Translate for language translation, YouTube for video viewing and sharing, Google My Business for managing public business information, and Duo for social interaction. In March 2019, Google unveiled a cloud gaming service named Stadia.

Some Google services are not web-based. Google Earth, launched in 2005, allowed users to see high-definition satellite pictures from all over the world for free through a client software downloaded to their computers.

Software

Google develops the Android mobile operating system, as well as its smartwatch, television, car, and Internet of things-enabled smart devices variations.

It also develops the Google Chrome web browser, and Chrome OS, an operating system based on Chrome.

Hardware

In January 2010, Google released Nexus One, the first Android phone under its own brand, "Nexus". It spawned a number of phones and tablets under the "Nexus" branding until its eventual discontinuation in 2016, replaced by a new brand called Pixel.

In 2011, the Chromebook was introduced, described as a "new kind of computer" running Chrome OS.

In July 2013, Google introduced the Chromecast dongle, that allows users to stream content from their smartphones to televisions.

In June 2014, Google announced Google Cardboard, a simple cardboard viewer that lets user place their smartphone in a special front compartment to view virtual reality (VR) media.

  • The Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones with the Google Assistant, a next-generation contextual voice assistant, built-in.
  • Google Home, a voice assistant smart speaker that can answer voice queries, play music, find information from apps (calendar, weather etc.), and control third-party smart home appliances (users can tell it to turn on the lights, for example). The Google Home line also includes variants such as the Google Nest Hub, Google Home Mini, Nest Hub Max, Nest Mini (second generation), and Google Home Max
  • Daydream View virtual reality headset that lets Android users with compatible Daydream-ready smartphones put their phones in the headset and enjoy VR content.
  • Google Wifi, a connected set of Wi-Fi routers to simplify and extend coverage of home Wi-Fi.

In October 2018, Google announced the Pixel 3. The phone was released initially in the United States on October 18, 2018 and other parts of the world on November 1, 2018. They are the successors to the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL.

In May 2019, Google unveiled the Pixel 3a at Google I/O, seven months after the announcement of the original Pixel 3 lineup. The new phones served as midrange variants of the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL with a 12.2 megapixel rear camera, which is the same unit found on the Pixel 3, and a single 8 megapixel front-facing camera. The base model came with a Snapdragon 670 chip and 4 GB of RAM, along with 64 GB of non-expandable internal storage.

In October 2019, Google announced the Pixel 4, the first Pixel phone to be offered for sale by all major wireless carriers at launch. The company also announced the second generation of its Pixel Buds, a line of wireless earbuds with the Google Assistant built-in that also support Google Translate.

In November 2019, Google released a controller for Stadia.

In August 2020, Google launched the Pixel 4a, months later than expected as the COVID-19 pandemic led to the cancellation of it's annual I/O developer conference.

In September 2020, Google launched the Pixel 4a 5G and the Pixel 5 at their live-streamed Launch Night In event. The phones were released alongside the new Nest Audio as well as Chromecast with Google TV.

Enterprise services

Google Workspace, (formerly G Suite until October 2020) is a monthly subscription offering for organizations and businesses to get access to a collection of Google's services, including Gmail, Google Drive and Google Docs, Google Sheets and Google Slides, with additional administrative tools, unique domain names, and 24/7 support.

On September 24, 2012, Google launched Google for Entrepreneurs, a largely not-for-profit business incubator providing startups with co-working spaces known as Campuses, with assistance to startup founders that may include workshops, conferences, and mentorships. Presently, there are 7 Campus locations in Berlin, London, Madrid, Seoul, São Paulo, Tel Aviv, and Warsaw.

On March 15, 2016, Google announced the introduction of Google Analytics 360 Suite, "a set of integrated data and marketing analytics products, designed specifically for the needs of enterprise-class marketers" which can be integrated with BigQuery on the Google Cloud Platform. Among other things, the suite is designed to help "enterprise class marketers" "see the complete customer journey", generate "useful insights", and "deliver engaging experiences to the right people". Jack Marshall of The Wall Street Journal wrote that the suite competes with existing marketing cloud offerings by companies including Adobe, Oracle, Salesforce, and IBM.

Internet services

In February 2010, Google announced the Google Fiber project, with experimental plans to build an ultra-high-speed broadband network for 50,000 to 500,000 customers in one or more American cities. Following Google's corporate restructure to make Alphabet Inc. its parent company, Google Fiber was moved to Alphabet's Access division.

In April 2015, Google announced Project Fi, a mobile virtual network operator, that combines Wi-Fi and cellular networks from different telecommunication providers in an effort to enable seamless connectivity and fast Internet signal.

In September 2016, Google began its Google Station initiative, a project for public Wi-Fi at railway stations in India. Caesar Sengupta, VP for Google's next billion users, told The Verge that 15,000 people get online for the first time thanks to Google Station and that 3.5 million people use the service every month. The expansion meant that Google was looking for partners around the world to further develop the initiative, which promised "high-quality, secure, easily accessible Wi-Fi". By December, Google Station had been deployed at 100 railway stations, and in February, Google announced its intention to expand beyond railway stations, with a plan to bring citywide Wi-Fi to Pune.

Other products

In May 2011, Google announced Google Wallet, a mobile application for wireless payments.

In 2013, Google launched Google Shopping Express, a delivery service initially available only in San Francisco and Silicon Valley.

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