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The impact of the Google search engine on our daily lives

Derek Stockley comments on the impact of the Google search engine on our daily lives.

The growth of the Google search engine

I discovered the Google search engine in its early days. As it was for many others, someone recommended it. I tried it and I liked it straight away. Its speed was so impressive.

Google grew very quickly because it provided a superior search experience. Word spread and the growth since 1998 has been dramatic.

Like many others, I often speak of its benefits. When Google decided to have a public share offer in early 2004, and the expected share price was announced, I was asked very pointedly: "Why didn't you invent it?"

I wish I had. Not just for the money, but it would be fantastic to have a positive impact on so many people’s lives.

The last Google daily search figure I heard was over 200 million individual searches every day.*

Google’s impact

Access to well over four billion** pages of information in micro seconds is excellent customer service, particularly when there is no direct charge.

Google has become an essential business tool which I personally use every day.

Over seventy percent of the search engine referrals to my site come from Google. It is therefore a very important "partner" in my business.

Google and productivity

I use Google for general research. I use it to find information to solve problems. I use it to do background research on my clients. If you have a company name to research, Google can help you find their website and/or other useful information.

Sometimes I will go "Googling". This involves doing a search on a person’s name. A potential client may have been a conference speaker, or may have been quoted in the media. Such knowledge is very helpful background information.

I thought Derek Stockley would be a unique name. Google tells me that there are at least two other Derek Stockleys in the world! So you have to be careful, and not jump to any unfounded conclusions.

Google is constantly adding new services. For a long time I had lamented that I could search over four billion** pages on the Internet more quickly than I could find a particular file on my own laptop or desktop computer!

Google Desktop Search has changed that. Provided you have recent operating software, you can now download a small application for your own computer that provides the same speed and comprehensiveness as the normal Google search engine. You can obtain more information here.

Whilst Google is not perfect, it has made a big difference to my business and personal life.

If you have a comment you would like to make, please send the comment to one of the email addresses listed below.

Please note: some of the pages on this website carry advertisements provided through the Google Adwords program. If you choose to click through to an advertiser’s website, I may receive a small payment. This financial relationship has not influenced the comments made above about Google. For more information on my approach, see Ethics Statement.

* In an article (27 December 2004) about the Google Founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, BusinessWeek stated the daily search queries now numbered 650 million per day.

** Early in November 2004, Google announced that it now indexes over eight billion pages.

**In late September 2005, Google stopped revealing how many pages it indexed, after announcing it had tripled its index size. Yahoo had recently claimed 20 billion pages indexed. The war over size is not the key issue - relevance is.

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Originally published in October 2004, this page was last modified on 28 September 2005.