Happy Birthday Google! As the search engine reached its fourteenth birthday this week, let’s take a look into the history a bit, find out why when someone has a problem, it’s not very often we hear “Yellowee it” (yes that IS a real search engine!) or “Bing it”, and see what the corporate giant can afford with the $37.9 billion it pulls in each year.

The dominance of Google has grown over the years, no doubt; when computer scientists Larry Page and Sergey Brin created it in 1998, Google was simply a private company search engine. Since then, it has added email, a documents programme, a file sharing programme, and even social networking to its online portfolio. Other products are also available including desktop programmes and its very own internet browser: Google Chrome. You may have heard of ‘Picassa’ and ‘Picnik’- yes they’re Google owned too- along with video website ‘Youtube’, ‘Orkut’ (a social networking site), and ‘Panoramio’, the photo sharing website from which Google Earth sources its location images.

There is no doubt that, to many people, Google is a large and positive aspect of daily life. According to a recent check, conducted on the 16th August 2012 by Matt Cutts (Google employee), around 3 billion searches are made and the site links to 20 billion pages each day, so whilst I have been using Google search to find information for this very article, the statistics calculate that I will have clicked on roughly 7 different websites.

Working at Google would be seen as an ideal job to most people, especially the younger generation; the company offices and headquarters have a range of amazing and unique attributes that you would never find in an ordinary office setting.

As shown in this ‘Youtube’ video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLfFJwoM6so&feature=player_embedded, there are bean bags in the office area; games rooms with table football and pool tables; gourmet food in the cafeterias; Pilates and massages available to employees. Some people may have even seen a photo floating around the internet of a slide in a Google office, which is real and located in the Mountain View headquarters in California, USA (also widely known as Googleplex).

Not only that, but the average annual wages a Google employee takes home can start at an overall £17,068 and range up to a whopping £74,670 for software engineers. One of the best financial benefits of being a Google employee for a person supporting a family is the 50% salary that is continued to be paid to the family of an employee for ten years following the unfortunate event of their death.

Unfortunately, some people disagree with the corporate internet giant, and think that Google has a dark side that it doesn’t want

the general public to see. I had a look into this and was given a video link to someone’s personal conspiracy theory about the company, posted on ‘Youtube’ (a Google owned website)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNofb-OlZyQ. Ironically the video was inexplicably unresponsive and would not play, and as a viewer you’re left with the tantalising question: is this just an error on the site, or is there something Google doesn’t want you to see?

Nevertheless, I know for certain that I will be applying at Google if I find any vacancies, Chrome remains my favourite and fastest browser, and I will never be able to stand Bing or Yahoo when I want to know the release date for my favourite new film.