What was Google's first word?

From BackRub to Google: The Search Engine’s Humble Beginnings

Long before "Google" became a household name, the tech giant started with a much more awkward title: BackRub. It might sound strange today, but the name made perfect sense at the time. In 1996, when founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin were developing their search algorithm at Stanford University, they focused on analyzing "back links"—the number of other websites linking to a given page—as a measure of its relevance and authority.

This innovative approach helped determine which pages were truly important on the early web, and the system operated under the name BackRub on Stanford’s servers. As the project grew, so did the need for a catchier, more scalable name. Inspired by the mathematical term "googol"—which represents the number 1 followed by 100 zeros—the duo renamed their project Google, a clever play on the original word. Ironically, "Google" was actually a misspelling of "googol," but it stuck.

The new name reflected the company’s mission: to organize the massive, seemingly infinite amount of information on the web. What began as a research project in a university dorm evolved into one of the most influential tech companies in history. From BackRub to a global powerhouse, Google’s origin story is a reminder that even the biggest empires often start with a simple, if slightly quirky, idea.