The search engine before Google.
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Larry Page and Sergey Brin created BackRub while at Stanford. It was named for the system’s analysis of “back links”—links pointing from one website to another. Those relationships helped determine which pages mattered, laying the foundation for PageRank and Google Search.
Google confirms that Larry and Sergey built a link-based search engine from their Stanford dorm rooms and called it BackRub before renaming it Google.
The original Stanford BackRub research page for Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s paper describing the prototype that became Google.
Brin and Page describe a prototype search engine designed to crawl and index the web efficiently and produce more satisfying results than existing systems.
The foundational patent assigned to Stanford describes ranking linked documents using the relationships between them. Lawrence Page is listed as inventor.
Larry Page meets Sergey Brin at Stanford University.
They build a search engine that evaluates links and name it BackRub.
BackRub becomes Google, a play on the mathematical word “googol.”
A $100,000 check helps officially launch Google Inc.
Memes, media, and artifacts from the search engine that existed before Google. Click anything to open it, rub your favorites, or copy the link.
The original search engine name, preserved in its natural habitat.
BackRub’s entire name came from analyzing the web’s backlinks.
The search brand from the timeline where Google never renamed itself.