How can we describe Google? Is it a search engine? Is it a portal? Or, would it be going too far to define it as a modern phenomenon?

Launched in the late ‘90s as competition to Yahoo! and Lycos, Google’s original mission statement was about ‘organising the world’s information’. It was about being simple but effective. And, looking at its homepage, it was nothing fancy to write home about really, was it?

Now, fast-forward a few years and take a peek at the site. True, the look’s not changed an awful lot. But the features have. News. Images. Photos. G-mail. Froogle (shopping searches). Groups (communities and discussion). Google Desktop. Mobile phone features. And Google Earth, where you can plug in your postcode and get a bird’s eye view of where you live.

Are they taking over the planet, as the Google Earth feature might suggest? According to the site’s Adwords blurb, the Google Network now reaches more than 80 per cent of internet users around the globe. So, how have they got to this stage?

It seems to me that being ready to take risks plays a large part in the network’s success. Firstly there are the features – only some of which I managed to name above. And secondly, there’s search itself. The latter is a major topic of discussion (and folklore) amongst website owners and search engine optimisation and marketing experts. With Google regularly changing the algorithms by which sites are rated for relevance against search terms, owners are often left guessing.

Of course, keeping search engine marketeers like me on their toes is good for the consumer. And, if we keep an open mind about it all, it’s good for companies too. Converting custom effectively from search engines is about presenting your wares when they fit the needs of the customer. If Google is truly adapting its algorithms to fine-tune search results for users, surely this also has a positive effect on a company’s return on marketing investment.

Does this all mean that Google has grown up from its humble beginnings in the late ‘90s? A recent article on BBC.co.uk (Jan. ’06) suggests that the network has certainly grown, but that it has not yet matured. Other reports say that Google has tried too many things and, as a result, they have lost their focus. Indeed, Google’s stumblings into the Chinese market – where they were forced to agree to levels of censorship in return for market entry – indicates that things are not going all their way. A recent drop on Wall Street (Feb ’06) also suggests that world domination is not as inevitable as once thought.

But, I think we should give Google a break here. In the life of a company, it is probably languishing in its teenage years. This is a time of exploration, of working out what you stand for, and finding where you truly fit in the world.

At the last count, Google was valued at around 140 billion. Pretty powerful for a teenager, I’d say.

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