Test Your Google IQ
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The year was 1998. The Spice Girls were tearing up the charts. "Titanic" was bringing tears to the eyes of moviegoers everywhere. And Google, the world's leading search engine, had just been founded.
At the time, people could be forgiven if they didn't see the future of search technology in front of them. After all, the Google home page was a plain white screen with not much else. But its founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, knew what they were doing. Eleven years later, Google is the undisputed leader in its field. Its early contemporaries, like Infoseek and Snap, long ago fell by the wayside.
How much do you know about the most popular search engine in the world? Take the following quiz and find out.
Posted 23 Nov 2009
The name "Google" is derived from the word "googol," which means what?
- A German variation on nine-pin bowling
- A mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeros
- A Ukrainian-born novelist and humorist
- An ice dwelling where Eskimos live
"Googol" is a number represented by a 1 followed by one hundred zeros, or 10 to the 100th power. The intentionally misspelled name was intended to convey the wealth of information that the search engine is able to access. However, it's taken on a life of its own as a verb, and in 2006 it made its debut in the Oxford English Dictionary, where it's defined as "to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet."
How much user-generated data does Google processes each hour?
- 1 gigabyte
- 1 petabyte
- 1 terabyte
- 1 infinibyte
Google's servers process one quadrillion bytes of user-generated data per hour, or one petabyte. If that sounds like more data than the average army of servers can handle, that's because it is. Google uses literally millions of servers all over the world in order to manage the onslaught of searches that come their way on a daily basis, and this is what's allowed them to become the leader in their field.
What is Google's corporate motto?
- All competition must be crushed
- Don't be evil
- Property is theft
- We make money the old-fashioned way --- we earn it
Google's motto is "Don't be evil," which suggests that the company conducts itself using only ethical business practices. According to their investor relations literature, failure to adhere to this motto "can result in disciplinary action, including termination of employment." So be nice.
Which religious figure received his own channel after Google bought the video website YouTube?
- Bishop Thomas Muthee
- Pat Robertson
- Pope Benedict XVI
- Rabbi Shmuley Boteach
After Google bought YouTube in November 2006, they entered into an agreement with the Pontifical Council for Social Communications to broadcast addresses to the faithful from Pope Benedict. This partnership put YouTube --- and, by extension, Google --- in front of the eyes of millions of Catholics the world over, so it seemed like a good deal for everybody. Well, almost everybody. Domenico Pompili, a representative of Italy's bishops, expressed unease about the partnership and its implications for the world's Catholics, saying that "the relationship with the Web has grown, but the question remains of how must we behave."
In 2006, Google entered into an agreement with Fox Interactive Media for search and advertising on what social networking site?
- Classmates.com
- Friendster
- MySpace
As of the first quarter of 2007, Google has been providing keyword-targeted advertising and search capabilities for all of Fox's online properties, one of which is MySpace.com. Under the terms of the deal, Google was also integrated into many other sites, including Rottentomatoes.com, AskMen.com and Fileplanet.com, among many others.
Google acquired a software company called Keyhole, Inc., and renamed their 3D map to what?
- Google 3D Map
- Google Atlas
- Google Earth
- Google Friend Finder
The 2004 purchase of Keyhole, Inc. was a real coup for Google, since the acquisition brought with it a product called EarthViewer 3D, rechristened Google Earth in 2005. Using satellite imagery, Google Earth allows users to search for addresses and coordinates, with results returned in the form of superimposed aerial photographs of rooftops, mountain peaks and everything in between.
What was the first project undertaken by Google's philanthropy, Google.org?
- An endowment for Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB)
- An endowment for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML)
- Development of a plug-in hybrid car
- Founding the One Laptop Per Child Association, Inc. (OLPC)
Google.org was founded in 2004 with $1 billion dollars and a mission to address such issues as poverty, disease and the environment. To address the issue of climate change, the charity purchased several cars to use as test cases in the development of a plug-in hybrid engine. The goal is for this engine to run on a mixture of electricity, ethanol and gasoline, and get gas mileage exceeding 100 miles per gallon.
How much does the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button on Google's search page cost the company every year?
- Nothing
- Less than $1 million
- $50 million
- More than $100 million
The "I'm Feeling Lucky" button takes Google users directly to the top search result, bypassing the search results page. While only one 1% of all searches actually use this feature, the price for Google is still pretty steep --- $110 million, to be exact. This is because the user doesn't just miss all the other search results. The user also misses all the advertising. So why does the company bother? According to Marissa Mayer, Vice President of Google's Search Products and User Experience division, "It's possible to become too dry, too corporate, too much about making money. I think what's delightful about 'I'm Feeling Lucky' is that it reminds you there are real people here."
In August 2005, Google sold 14,159,265 shares of its stock. What is the significance of this number?
- It's completely random
- It's a sequence of digits found in the mathematical symbol "pi"
- It's the population of Michigan, the birthplace of Google co-founder Larry Page
- It's the population of Moscow, the birthplace of Google co-founder Sergey Brin
The numerical form of the mathematical symbol "pi" is 3.14159265, and the number of shares that Google offered is the eight-digit sequence that appears after the decimal point. Inside math jokes are actually standard operating procedure for Google; in their initial public offering in August 2004, the company floated 14,142,135 shares, a reference to1.4142135, or the square root of 2.
Which of the following services was actually an April Fool's Day hoax perpetrated by Google?
- Google Caffeine
- Google Mail
- Google Toilet Internet Service Provider (TiSP)
- iGoogle
On April 1, 2007, Google announced a new broadband service that utilized sewage lines to transfer information. The user of this amazing new technology would drop a very long fiber-optic cable into their toilet bowl and, an hour after flushing, would have the other end retrieved by a friendly "Plumbing Hardware Dispatcher (PHD)." The user would then plug in the unflushed end of the cable, install the software and be connected to the information superhighway. It is not known how many people actually fell for this, since Google had by this time already established a track record of April Fool's Day hoaxes, and this one may simply have been too absurd to be believed.
Your score:
- Google Chrome
You provide millions of accurate results at lightning speed.
Check for latest showtimes - Google Beta
You provide basic information, but your algorithm needs work.
Check for latest showtimes - Infoseek
You provide a lot of "File not found" pages.
Check for latest showtimes
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes
