Ankit Kumar Agarwal

History of Search Engines

Ankit Kumar Agarwal — Thu, 20 May 2010 05:27:27 +0000

You’ll have a better feel for today’s search engines if you know a little of the history behind them. Of course, there’s not much history to cover, since the Internet is still a youngster! Let’s take a look at how it all started.

We’ll begin by clearing up a common misunderstanding. Did you ever wonder what the difference is between the Internet and the World Wide Web? Many people believe that the two terms can be used interchangeably. In actuality, nothing could be further from the truth.

The Internet is a worldwide network of computer networks. It was dreamed up in 1969 by a U.S. government agency called ARPA, or the Advanced Research Projects Agency. (In fact, the Internet’s original name was ARPANET.) Nowadays, you can access the Internet via telephone lines, cable, fiber optics, and other communication mediums.

The Internet: A worldwide network of computer networks

The World Wide Web is younger still. It came into being around 1990, when researchers realized that they could use the Internet to connect a web of stored hypertext pages and make them accessible to people around the world. That web of pages grew from a handful at the outset to billions today.

The World Wide Web is, by far, the most commonly used application on the Internet. (E-mail is another application of the Internet that you’re familiar with.)

All users of the Web utilize HTTP, or the hypertext transfer protocol, in order to navigate from one Web site to another. Look at the address bar near the top of your Web browser. You’ll find that the www is preceded by http://. This tells the Web site that you’re on the World Wide Web and that you’re using the hypertext transfer protocol.

It’s important to understand the difference between the Internet and the Web so you can fully grasp how search engines work. While search engines use the Internet, they don’t search the entire Internet. Typically, search engines only search for Web sites on the World Wide Web.

The Search Engine Power Players, Yesterday and Today

For a young industry, the search engine field already has quite a past! Here’s a quick summary of important points on the search engine timeline. If you’re a real history buff, you’ll find more details in the FAQs for this lesson.

1993: The first widely acclaimed search engine, the World Wide Web Wanderer, appears. Created to measure the growth of the Web, it performs its job through 1997. The statistics compiled by this search engine are still available on the Web today.

1994: WebCrawler comes on the scene. The original WebCrawler database contains just 6,000 Web sites. (I think I have more Web sites than that listed in my favorites!) AOL-now there’s a name you probably recognize-purchases WebCrawler in 1995, but sells it just two years later to Excite. Infospace, its current owner, buys WebCrawler when Excite declares bankruptcy.

1994: Another powerhouse, the Lycos search engine, launches with 54,000 indexed documents. The Lycos search engine is still a player today, but it’s changed hands several times. Currently, it’s a subsidiary of the Korean-based Daum Communications Corporation.

1995: AltaVista explodes onto the scene. AltaVista (or AV) is the first search engine to include multilingual search capabilities. After changing hands several times, AltaVista becomes the property of Overture Services. (Overture is owned by Yahoo!, which we’ll discuss a bit later.) AltaVista maintains its status as the search king until the launch of Google.

1998: Larry Page and Sergey Brin introduce the world to Google, which quickly shoots to the top of the search engine rankings. (The name comes from the word googol, which is the name for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros.) Google’s database now includes trillions of Web pages, and most experts agree that Google enjoys greater than 50% of total search engine traffic. This means that a top Google ranking will yield more traffic to your site than a top ranking with any other search engine…period.

That’s where things stand now, with Google by far the most used search engine on the Web.

However, things change rapidly, with companies constantly buying, selling, and creating search engines. As a result, you’ll want to keep tabs on which search engines are gaining or losing popularity.

Search Engines versus Directories

Are you wondering why we didn’t talk about Yahoo! in the last section? That’s because Yahoo! began as a directory, not a search engine.

While search engines’ indexes are compiled by computers, directories are categorical lists of Web sites compiled by humans. Before it’s accepted, each Web site listed in a directory is carefully scrutinized and deemed acceptable for placement in one specific category.

Some people argue that because directories are compiled by humans, they’re limited because they don’t offer as many search results as search engines. However, I think you’ll find that the search results displayed by directories can often be much more useful than the search results displayed by search engines.

The most popular directory on the Web is Yahoo!, founded in 1994 by David Filo and Jerry Yang. They started Yahoo! on a couple of computers in a campus trailer at Stanford, initially using it to track their own interests. It surprised them by taking off quickly, and they incorporated it in 1995 with an initial investment of almost $2 million. By the way, Yahoo! Is an acronym for Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle-but I promise not to test you on that!

In an effort to diversify, Yahoo decided to use Google’s engine to supply users with primary search results. However, in 2004, Yahoo! unveiled its own brand-new search engine.

You can still tap into Yahoo!’s directory, and I think you’ll find it extremely useful at times. If you perform a search at http://www.yahoo.com, the results you’ll get are derived from the Yahoo Search Engine. However, you can obtain Yahoo Directory search results by initiating a search at http://dir.yahoo.com.

The Open Directory Project is perhaps the second most popular directory on the Web. It’s compiled by more than 50,000 volunteers who’ve indexed nearly 4 million Web sites. The directory contains just under 500,000 categories, all of which can be searched by keyword or category.

Due to the limited resources of the Open Directory, searching for results through their Web site can be time-consuming and cumbersome. However, some search engines include Open Directory listings within their secondary search results.

Spammers All around

Ankit Kumar Agarwal — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 02:24:32 +0000

Well i don’t know what i am doing..i have final sems tomorrow and today i am sitting here and deleting the 200 spam comments i got on this blog.Its really a tedious job..i have over 5 blogs and each is being spammed like hell.

Common man give it a break xumer is not everything , if you don’t know whats SEO quit marketing,spamming all round isn’t something worth the trouble.My site is no follow any way,Mo rover its manually approved,so save trouble-DON’T SPAM THIS BLOG.

Indians on social sites

Ankit Kumar Agarwal — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 16:18:36 +0000

We all know that Indians are pretty found of social networking sites..perhaps they have so much time to kill..any way check this two pics out

can you read this?

Ankit Kumar Agarwal — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 17:05:26 +0000

To my ’selected’
strange-minded friends:

If you can read the
following paragraph, forward it on to your friends and the person that sent it to you with ‘yes’ in the subject line.

Only great minds can read
this

fi yuo cna
raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too

Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe
out of 100 can.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht
I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch
at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod
are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit
pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm.
Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!
if you can raed tihs forwrad it

FORWARD ONLY IF YOU CAN READ IT

Forward it & put ‘YES’ in the Subject
Line

Change Your Thinking

Ankit Kumar Agarwal — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 16:09:07 +0000

Change Your Thinking

It will take just 37 seconds to read this and change your thinking..

Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room.

One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs.

His bed was next to the room’s only window.

The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back.

The men talked for hours on end.

They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their involvement in the military service, where they had been on vacation..

Every afternoon, when the man in the bed by the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window.

The man in the other bed began to live for those one hour periods where his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity and colour of the world outside.

The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake.

Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats. Young lovers walked arm in arm amidst flowers of every colour and a fine view of the city skyline could be seen in the distance.

As the man by the window described all this in exquisite details, the man on the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine this picturesque scene.

One warm afternoon, the man by the window described a parade passing by.

Although the other man could not hear the band – he could see it in his mind’s eye as the gentleman by the window portrayed it with descriptive words.

Days, weeks and months passed.

One morning, the day nurse arrived to bring water for their baths only to find the lifeless body of the ma n by the window, who had died peacefully in his sleep.

She was saddened and called the hospital attendants to take the body away.

As soon as it seemed appropriate, the other man asked if he could be moved next to the window. The nurse was happy to make the switch, and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone.

Slowly, painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow to take his first look at the real world outside.
He strained to slowly turn to look out the window besides the bed..

It faced a blank wall.

The man asked the nurse what could have compelled his deceased roommate who had described such wonderful things outside this window.

The nurse responded that the man was blind and could not even see the wall.

She said, ‘Per haps he just wanted to encourage you.’

Epilogue:

There is tremendous happiness in making others happy, despite our own situations.

Shared grief is half the sorrow, but happiness when shared, is doubled.

If you want to feel rich, just count all the things you have that money can’t buy.

‘Today is a gift, that is why it is called The Present .’

source:-Via Email

WordPress 2.8.5 Unrestricted File Upload Arbitrary PHP Code Execution

Ankit Kumar Agarwal — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:11:16 +0000

Recently Dawid Golunski released a wp 2.8.5 exploit which let users to execute arbitatry PHP codes.

After i had a conversation with him it was concluded that this exploied is confiend to a few apchae servers only and other servers are safe!! Below is a copy of his discolsure and our conversation:-

Disclosure

==============================

===============
- Release date: November 11th, 2009
- Discovered by: Dawid Golunski
- Severity: Moderately High
=============================================

I. VULNERABILITY
————————-
WordPress <= 2.8.5 Unrestricted File Upload Arbitrary PHP Code Execution

II. BACKGROUND
————————-
WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards,
and usability. WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time. More simply, WordPress is
what you use when you want to work with your blogging software, not fight it.

III. DESCRIPTION
————————-

Wordpress allows authorised users to add an attachment to a blog post.
It does not sanitize provided file properly before moving it to an uploads directory.

The part of the code responsible for uploading files looks as follows:

wp-admin/includes/file.php:
—[cut]—
line 217:
function wp_handle_upload( &$file, $overrides = false, $time = null ) {
—[cut]—
// All tests are on by default. Most can be turned off by $override[{test_name}] = false;
$test_form = true;
$test_size = true;

// If you override this, you must provide $ext and $type!!!!
$test_type = true;
$mimes = false;
—[cut]—

// A properly uploaded file will pass this test. There should be no reason to override this one.
if (! @ is_uploaded_file( $file['tmp_name'] ) )
return $upload_error_handler( $file, __( ‘Specified file failed upload test.’ ));

// A correct MIME type will pass this test. Override $mimes or use the upload_mimes filter.
if ( $test_type ) {
$wp_filetype = wp_check_filetype( $file['name'], $mimes );

extract( $wp_filetype );

if ( ( !$type || !$ext ) && !current_user_can( ‘unfiltered_upload’ ) )
return $upload_error_handler( $file,
__( ‘File type does not meet security guidelines. Try another.’ ));

if ( !$ext )
$ext = ltrim(strrchr($file['name'], ‘.’), ‘.’);

if ( !$type )
$type = $file['type'];
} else {
$type = ”;
}

// A writable uploads dir will pass this test. Again, there’s no point overriding this one.
if ( ! ( ( $uploads = wp_upload_dir($time) ) && false === $uploads['error'] ) )
return $upload_error_handler( $file, $uploads['error'] );

$filename = wp_unique_filename( $uploads['path'], $file['name'], $unique_filename_callback );

// Move the file to the uploads dir
$new_file = $uploads['path'] . “/$filename”;
if ( false === @ move_uploaded_file( $file['tmp_name'], $new_file ) ) {
return $upload_error_handler( $file,
sprintf( __(‘The uploaded file could not be moved to %s.’ ), $uploads['path'] ) );
}
—[cut ]—

From the above code we can see that provided filename gets checked with:
$wp_filetype = wp_check_filetype( $file['name'], $mimes );

Here is how the wp_check_filetype() function looks like:

wp-includes/functions.php:
—[cut]—
line 2228:

function wp_check_filetype( $filename, $mimes = null ) {
// Accepted MIME types are set here as PCRE unless provided.
$mimes = ( is_array( $mimes ) ) ? $mimes : apply_filters( ‘upload_mimes’, array(
‘jpg|jpeg|jpe’ => ‘image/jpeg’,
‘gif’ => ‘image/gif’,
‘png’ => ‘image/png’,
‘bmp’ => ‘image/bmp’,
‘tif|tiff’ => ‘image/tiff’,
‘ico’ => ‘image/x-icon’,
‘asf|asx|wax|wmv|wmx’ => ‘video/asf’,
‘avi’ => ‘video/avi’,

—[cut, more mime types]—
line 2279:

$type = false;
$ext = false;

foreach ( $mimes as $ext_preg => $mime_match ) {
$ext_preg = ‘!\.(‘ . $ext_preg . ‘)$!i’;
if ( preg_match( $ext_preg, $filename, $ext_matches ) ) {
$type = $mime_match;
$ext = $ext_matches[1];
break;
}
}

return compact( ‘ext’, ‘type’ );
}

We can see that type of the file gets set to a predefined MIME type that matches supplied
extension, and that the extension is obtained from a regexp that matches a mime ext. string after
the LAST dot.
If extension is not on the list $type and $ext will be set to FALSE and wordpress will
produce an error (“File type does not meet security guidelines. Try another”).

Let’s look at the other check that is performed on the filename before a file gets uploaded,
that is a call to the following function:
$filename = wp_unique_filename( $uploads['path'], $file['name'], $unique_filename_callback );

wp-includes/functions.php:
line 2096:
function wp_unique_filename( $dir, $filename, $unique_filename_callback = null ) {
// sanitize the file name before we begin processing
$filename = sanitize_file_name($filename);

—[cut, code that only matters if uploaded file already exists]—
line 2126:
return $filename;
}

To have a complete view on file sanitization performed by wordpress we need to look into the
sanitize_file_name() function:

wp-includes/formatting.php:
line 601:
function sanitize_file_name( $filename ) {
$filename_raw = $filename;
$special_chars = array(“?”, “[", "]“, “/”, “\\”, “=”, “<”, “>”, “:”, “;”, “,”, “‘”, “\”",
“&”, “$”, “#”, “*”, “(“, “)”, “|”, “~”, “`”, “!”, “{“, “}”, chr(0));
$special_chars = apply_filters(’sanitize_file_name_chars’, $special_chars, $filename_raw);
$filename = str_replace($special_chars, ”, $filename);
$filename = preg_replace(‘/[\s-]+/’, ‘-’, $filename);
$filename = trim($filename, ‘.-_’);
return apply_filters(’sanitize_file_name’, $filename, $filename_raw);
}

This function removes special characters shown above, replaces spaces and consecutive dashes with
a single dash, trims period, dash and underscore from beginning and end of the filename.

The sanitization process appears quite extensive however it does not take into account files that
have multiple extensions.
It is possible to upload a file containing an arbitrary PHP script with an extension of ‘.php.jpg’
and execute it by requesting the uploaded file directly.

The execution of the PHP code despite the .php.jpg extension is possible because Apache
allows for multiple extensions. Here is a quote from Apache docs regarding this matter:

”
Files can have more than one extension, and the order of the extensions is normally irrelevant.
For example, if the file welcome.html.fr maps onto content type text/html and language French then
the file welcome.fr.html will map onto exactly the same information. If more than one extension is
given that maps onto the same type of meta-information, then the one to the right will be used,
except for languages and content encodings. For example, if .gif maps to the MIME-type image/gif
and .html maps to the MIME-type text/html, then the file welcome.gif.html will be associated with
the MIME-type text/html.

Care should be taken when a file with multiple extensions gets associated with both a MIME-type
and a handler. This will usually result in the request being handled by the module associated with
the handler. For example, if the .imap extension is mapped to the handler imap-file
(from mod_imagemap) and the .html extension is mapped to the MIME-type text/html, then the file
world.imap.html will be associated with both the imap-file handler and text/html MIME-type.
When it is processed, the imap-file handler will be used, and so it will be treated as a
mod_imagemap imagemap file.
”

IV. PROOF OF CONCEPT
————————-
Browser is enough to replicate this issue. Simply log in to your wordpress blog as a low privileged
user or admin. Create a new post and use the media file upload feature to upload a file:

test-image.php.jpg

containing the following code:

phpinfo();
?>

After the upload you should receive a positive response saying:

test-vuln.php.jpg
image/jpeg
2009-11-11

and it should be possible to request the uploaded file via a link:
http://link-to-our-wp-unsecured-blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/test-vuln.php.jpg

thus executing the PHP code it contains.

In the above code example, a php info page will be shown.

V. BUSINESS IMPACT
————————-
An attacker that has already obtained login details (for example by stealing user’s cookies with
an XSS attack) to the blog as one of the existing users could exploit this vulnerability to get
access to the system in the Apache user’s context.
From there he could use local bugs to further escalate the privileges. Apache account would be
enough in most cases to view the source codes and gain access to the databases.

Some wordpress users of the 2.8.5 release have reported that some php files have been added to
their wordpress directory. It could be possible that they have been hit by this bug. Therefore it
is important to take some countermeasures as soon as possible.

VI. SYSTEMS AFFECTED
————————-
Most likely all of the wordpress releases contain this bug. Including the current hardened stable
release 2.8.5 and the beta version.

VII. SOLUTION
————————-
Vendor has been informed about the bug. Currently wordpress developers and contributors are in
the process of bug hunting and fixing reported bugs in beta versions before the new stable release,
so hopefully it should not take long for them to take this problem into account.

You can apply the temporary solutions for this problem which I provide below before an official
patch is made.

You can create a .htaccess file in the uploads dir (wordpress/wp-content/uploads) with
the following content:

deny from all

order deny,allow
allow from all

Adjust allowed file extensions in the brackets if necessary.
This will prevent Apache from serving files with double extensions inside the uploads directory.

Alternatively you can try to patch the source code yourself by editing the
wp-admin/includes/file.php file and the wp_handle_upload() function it contains. An example patch
could be to add the following three lines of code at the line 260:

// Fix Unrestricted File Upload Arbitrary PHP Code Execution bug, return if more than 1 extension provided
if ( count(explode(‘.’, $file['name'])) > 2 );
return $upload_error_handler( $file, __( ‘File type does not meet security guidelines. Try another.’ ));

VIII. REFERENCES
————————-
http://www.wordpress.org
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mod_mime.html#multipleext

IX. CREDITS
————————-
This vulnerability has been discovered by Dawid Golunski
golunski (at) onet (dot) eu

Greetings go to: robxt, sajanek, xsoti, bart, falcon (for the old time’s sake and complexmind

X. REVISION HISTORY
————————-
November 11th, 2009: Initial release

XI. LEGAL NOTICES
————————-
The information contained within this advisory is supplied “as-is” with no warranties or guarantees of fitness of
use or otherwise. I accept no responsibility for any damage caused by the use or misuse of this information.

Counter question by me

Hi,
i was testing this and i get just the url echoed nothing else.The php info command didnt work.
am i missing something?
Morover

For example, if .gif maps to the MIME-type image/gif
and .html maps to the MIME-type text/html, then the file welcome.gif.html will be associated with
the MIME-type text/html.

So doesnt that mean that the file will be associated with jpg only?
sorry if you think this noobis.But i am not able to figure it out.
Thanks

Ankit kumar agarwal

His reply

Hi,

Yes, you missed the other part of the quote from apache docs That is:

“Care should be taken when a file with multiple extensions gets associated with both a MIME-type

and a handler. This will usually result in the request being handled by the module associated with

the handler. For example, if the .imap extension is mapped to the handler imap-file

(from mod_imagemap) and the .html extension is mapped to the MIME-type text/html, then the file

world.imap.html will be associated with both the imap-file handler and text/html MIME-type.

When it is processed, the imap-file handler will be used, and so it will be treated as a

mod_imagemap imagemap file.”

A lot of systems that use apache/php have their apache configured so that it handles .php files via:

AddHandler php5-script .php

as opposed to :

AddType application/x-httpd-php .php (which is probably your case)

According to the above, handlers have priority over mime types thus .php.jpg will be executed as a php.

I’m going to clarify this on bugtraq soon so it is clear for others too.

Hope this clarifies it.

Take care,

Dawid

His public Explanation of what i asked

Hi,
Just wanted to add a quick update on affected systems since I forgot to mention webservers along with wordpress versions in my advisory.
Some people are wondering why the vulnerability doesn’t work on their system.

I’m pretty sure that the exploit won’t work on web servers other than Apache (as they probably won’t process extensions other than the last one). So not apache based servers are probably safe here.
Whether it will work on your Apache server or not depends on your mod_php configuration.
The exploit won’t work on servers where PHP scripts handling has been configured as follows:

SetHandler application/x-httpd-php

If the exploit doesn’t work for you this is most likely the case.

The exploit however will work on systems where php scripts are handled via the following setting in the php.conf:

AddHandler php5-script .php

which I think is quite common. For example Apache distributed in Red Hat based systems seem to have php configured in such a way.

Hope this clears the matter a bit.

Regards,
Dawid

Thats it..dont misuse above information!!

Google-The History Part-5

Ankit Kumar Agarwal — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 06:03:23 +0000

2009 has been a busy year so far for Google, and it isn’t over yet. So far Google has added offline access to Gmail, introduced its Latitude location service, taken you to Mars with a new version of Google Earth, and re-launched the GrandCentral phone service as Google Voice, to name but a few things.

Google also unveiled its Wave service in May of this year. Wave combines a range of communication and social networking activities into a single web application and is expected to be available to the masses later this year.

The biggest news from Google this year came when the firm announced that it plans to release an operating system. Google Chrome OS is expected to land next year, and will initially be aimed at low end devices such as netbooks. Several hints at what the OS could look like have leaked online, but Google have yet to comment on any supposed screenshots.

A rumoured screenshot of Google’s Chrome operating system.

What Does The Future Hold?

With eleven years behind them, Google is still innovating and tweaking. What we can expect next from the search giant is anyone’s guess, but in the immediate future we can look forward to taking Chrome OS for a spin, trying out new versions of Android, and watching countless videos on YouTube.

Just be sure to remember this, Google: Don’t be evil. Please.

What will Google come up with next? Chime in with your thoughts in the comments.

Follow Geek Tech and Chris Brandrick on Twitter.

Google-The History Part-4

Ankit Kumar Agarwal — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 05:50:29 +0000

A Message From Chad & Steve: 2006

Ending months of speculation, in late 2006 Google finally revealed that they had bought online video site YouTube in a massive $1.65 billion stock transaction.

The Growth Continues: 2007

The year started with Google expanding into new territories once again, with Google Maps making its way to Australia and the Google Docs suite of tools being made available in several additional languages. Gmail was also made available to all, no longer requiring an invitation.

The biggest innovation from Google in 2007 was the addition of street level photography to Google Maps. Dubbed Street View, the service lets you view and explore a number of US locations at street level. Naturally, Street View’s introduction caused some controversy as it raised quite a few privacy concerns.

Popular search terms in 2007 included the iPhone, Facebook and Second Life. Since Google acquired YouTube in 2006, the popular video site has grown into an outright juggernaut: Even the Queen of England has her own YouTube channel.

Going Full Circle: 2008

Last year Google celebrated their tenth year in operation, and showed no signs of slowing down. The company released its first iPhone application, expanded Street View’s coverage to include a number of additional countries, revealed a new version of its Picasa photo management app, and launched Knol, a Wikipedia-type service.

In its biggest move of the year, Google announced that it would enter the browser wars with its own take on the humble web browser. The open source Google Chrome appeared in September of last year, and featured a minimalist interface and home page with shortcuts to frequently visited pages–features that have made their way into other browsers since then.

Later in the year, Google’s foray into software continued as the first ever cell phone to use Android, Google’s open-source mobile OS, hit the scene.

Google-The History Part-3

Ankit Kumar Agarwal — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 05:47:14 +0000

The Written Word: 2003

2003 was one verbose year for the search-engine giant. It began in February when Google acquired Pyra Labs, creators of the Blogger service, which allowed the masses to publish their thoughts online with ease. Soon after the acquisition, Google’s company name was announced as a recognized verb, to “google it” had become synonymous with search, however Google strived to steer clear of dictonaries and protect their strong brand.

In December the controversial Google Print was launched: Now known as Google Book Search, the service allows users to view excerpts from thousands of books in digital form. Classic books and their film adaptations, such as Lord Of The Rings and Harry Potter, were some of the most searched for terms on Google in 2003.

Email, Google Style: 2004

Without a doubt 2004 biggest Google news was the introduction of Gmail. The beta launched on April Fools Day, but Google made sure that Gmails was no joke, offering a then-unheard-of 1GB of storage along with a speedy user experience and the beauty of Google’s search technology built right in to your inbox. The service launched as a strictly invite-only affair, which resulted in an online gold rush of those hoping to land an invitation. After five years, Gmail finally disposed of its beta status early in June of 2009.

2004 also saw Google move to its Mountain View, California “Googleplex” headquarters, where the company still resides today. In addition, Google opened a research and development center in Tokyo and a European headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. With over three thousand employees, a range or products under its belt and over eight billion items in its search index Google’s growth continued to amaze.

Mapping The World: 2005

In 2005, Google’s ongoing effort to organize the world’s information continued as they released Google Maps. Since then, Google has continually improved the mapping service, adding new features such as satellite views and directions, as well as increasing the number of new searchable locations. Google Earth, a 3D satellite photography-based mapping application, soon followed, further complimenting Google’s range of location services.

2005 also saw the release of the iGoogle customizable home page, Google Reader RSS feed manager and Google Analytics. Optimized mobile versions of Gmail, Blogger, and Search were also released.

Oh, and could you imagine naming your newborn baby “Google”? It happened.

Google-The History Part-2

Ankit Kumar Agarwal — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 05:37:55 +0000

Growth & Expansion: 2000

2000 was a year of growth, as along with the search engine reaching a milestone of one billion pages indexed, the website also expanded to support over fifteen languages including Chinese, French, German, Japanese and more.

How things change. This year (2000) also saw Yahoo! reveal that they will be using Google as their default search provider. At the time this was a big deal, as Yahoo! was once one of the darlings of search, which Google had originally set their eyes on to compete with; mission accomplished? Of course today paints a very different picture as now both Yahoo! and Microsoft are collectively attempting to compete with the search giant that Google has become.

Before the year was out Google also found time to launch the immensely successful AdWords program, and their Toolbar browser plug-in. With the year drawing to a close it was pretty clear that the search engine was on a meteoric rise, as Google was now handling nearly 100 million search queries a day.

Going Global: 2001

With the search engine now available in over twenty-five languages, it only seemed right that the company would expand on a global level with the opening of its first international office in Tokyo. 2001 also saw Google hire ex-Novell chief executive Eric Schmidt, who started at Google as the Chairman of the Board, before quickly moving on to become the CEO.

With the Google search index approaching three billion webpages, it seemed the perfect time to tackle a new type of search: Images. Google launched its Image Search service in July, and initially had an index of over 250 million images.

Getting Geeky: 2002

2002 saw Google launch a range of new products, including the shopping tool Froogle, the experimental Google Labs, and the popular Google News service, a product of the company’s so-called “twenty percent time“. Geeky Google also decided to offer a Klingon translation of the site for all those Star Trek fans out there, bringing the total number of supports languages to over seventy. Spiderman, Warcraft 3 and pop star Shakira were amongst the most common search terms of the year.