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Google’s New GoogleScout Feature Expands Scope of Search on the Internet

New Search Destination Site Provides Unprecedented Ease of Use, Helping Internet Users to Find Information Fast and Effectively

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – September 21, 1999 – Google Inc., one of the fastest growing search destinations on the World Wide Web, today announced GoogleScout™, a revolutionary new feature that expands a user’s access to related information beyond the results of a search query. The company today also announced the launch of its new website at www.google.com.

With the launch of the new Google site and the introduction of GoogleScout, Google completes a successful and widely publicized beta test, which is based on more than three years of advanced research at Stanford University’s Computer Science Department. Google is dedicated to providing the best search experience on the World Wide Web by offering users a high-performance, scalable technology that enables fast access to information on the Internet.

Google’s new GoogleScout feature is designed to make finding information and navigating the web faster and easier. GoogleScout links are provided with each returned website result. Clicking on GoogleScout instantly provides users with an additional list of URLs that contains related information.

Google’s underlying technology integrates a clean, easy-to-use interface with next-generation technology to deliver search and related link search results based on importance and relevancy. The new GoogleScout feature offers a continuous source of relevant recommendations of where to go next on the web, and takes users to similar sites without additional keyword searching.

As the growth of the Internet continues at an unprecedented rate – recent industry figures estimate that 1.5 million pages are added to the Internet each day – the average search returns an overwhelming number of results for users to sort through. Google helps consumers save time by delivering highly targeted results that narrow the time spent searching the web.

"We recognized years ago that existing search engines would be unable to keep pace with the massive growth of the Internet," said Larry Page, co-founder and chief executive officer of Google. "Google delivers highly targeted and relevant results, but beyond that we offer GoogleScout, a revolutionary concept for locating groups of information sources on the World Wide Web. GoogleScout helps user surf the web smarter, faster, and easier."

Until now, word-of-mouth recommendations have been the force in driving traffic to the Google search engine. Google currently averages about 65 searches per second at peak times and three and a half million searches per day.

"In its beta phase, Google has developed a loyal following with its users because it’s easy to use and delivers remarkably relevant results," said Sergey Brin, co-founder and president of Google. "We developed our approach to search technology to address the very real challenge of finding information on the Internet. Everything we do – from the development of our advanced technology to the design of our user interface – is focused on delivering the best search experience on the web. We’re delighted with the response we’ve received from Google users around the world who have enthusiastically embraced our approach to search."

Google Search Technology Features

Google’s distinctive approach to search is based on a wide array of features and technologies, including the following:

  • An Elegant, Easy-to-Use Interface: Google’s clean, uncluttered interface is designed to make it easy for users to enter search queries and interpret results. Results are presented with context sensitive summaries so users can easily tell if the corresponding web pages will satisfy their need. Users can also enter a query and click the "I’m Feeling Lucky™ " button, which takes users directly to the website of the first search result. For example, entering smithsonian into the Google search field and clicking the "I’m Feeling Lucky" button takes the user directly to www.si.edu, the official homepage of the Smithsonian Institution.
  • Sophisticated Text-Matching: Unlike conventional search engines, Google is hypertext-based. It analyzes all the content on each web page and factors in fonts, subdivisions, and the precise positions of all terms on the page. Google also factors in the content of neighboring web pages. All of this data enables Google to return results that are more relevant to user queries.
  • Patent-Pending PageRank Technology: Google’s PageRank™ technology performs an objective measurement of the importance of web pages that is calculated by solving an equation of 500 million variables and more than 2 billion terms. Google does not determine results by counting links. Instead, Google’s PageRank uses the vast link structure of the web as an organizational tool. In essence, Google interprets a link from Page A to Page B as a vote by Page A for Page B. Google assesses a page’s importance by the votes it receives. It also analyzes the page that cast the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important." Important, high-quality pages receive a higher PageRank and are ordered higher in the results. Google is objective and fully automated and does not use human editors to judge a web page’s importance.
  • Results are Delivered in Order of Importance and Relevance. Internet users get the results they’re looking for because Google delivers the most relevant and important results first. Matched terms are highlighted in the context of the description so users have more information about a page before jumping to it.
  • Cached Links that Show Web Results Even if a Server is Down. Google stores a cached copy of all the web pages it crawls so users can access a web page even when a server is down or the link is broken. A cached copy loads quickly since it is saved by Google’s high-powered computers.
  • Website Results that Feature a Related URL link. Google’s newest feature, GoogleScout, offers a list of sites related to a search result. A GoogleScout link is created from the collective wisdom of the web. It delivers suggested websites that are based on an objective and fully automated analysis of web pages and overall link patterns of the web.
  • Integrity in Search Results: Google is objective and unbiased. Google is resistant to manipulation of returned results and does not alter the rank of search results based on payment.

Google Search Services

Google provides the same high-quality search capabilities to portals and commercial websites with its Google SiteSearch and Google WebSearch products.

  • Google SiteSearch is designed to search for information contained within a specific website. Red Hat, Inc., a leading developer and provider of open source Linux-based operating system, uses Google’s SiteSearch capability to enable visitors to search for company-specific information contained within the RedHat.com website.
  • Google WebSearch offers web-wide search capabilities to commercial websites and portals. AOL’s Netscape Netcenter portal uses Google’s WebSearch capability to enable its visitors to search the entire web from the Netcenter portal’s Netscape Search.

About Google, Inc.

Google was founded in 1998 by Stanford University Ph.D. candidates Larry Page and Sergey Brin to create a new generation of powerful, scalable search engine products to improve the user experience of searching the web. Based on three years of advanced research in computer science, Google is dedicated to providing the best user search experience by delivering a powerful, yet simple-to-use format for finding the most relevant answers to search queries.

Google currently offers search solutions through its own destination site at www.google.com. The company also offers co-branded web search and site search solutions for information content providers.

Google is privately held. The company’s funding partners include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital. The company announced in June that Michael Moritz, general partner of Sequoia Capital, and John Doerr, general partner of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, joined Google’s Board of Directors. Moritz is currently director of numerous companies, including WebVan, Agile Software, eToys, Flextronics, NightFire, Saba Software, PlanetRx, eGroups, Affinia and Yahoo!. Doerr was a co-founder of @Home, and is a director of several high-growth Internet companies, including Amazon.com, DrugStore.com, Epicor, Google, HandSpring, Intuit, Lightspan Partnership, MarthaStewart Living, OmniMedia and Sun Microsystems.

Other investors include Stanford University; Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems and current vice president at Cisco Systems; and Ram Shriram, former president of Junglee and vice president of Business Development at Amazon.com. Google is based in Mountain View, Calif. More information about Google can be found on the company’s website at www.google.com.

Google’s corporate customers include Netscape, a subsidiary of AOL (NYSE: AOL), which incorporates Google’s search technology into its Netscape Search on the Netcenter portal. Other customers include Red Hat, Inc. (NASDAQ: RHAT), a leading developer and provider of open source Linux-based operating system; wunderground.com, a leading market innovator for Web-based weather delivery; and Gobi, a leading technology service provider.

Google’s destination site was listed in PC Magazine’s July 1999 Top 100 Web Sites and recently was cited as a staff favorite in Newsweek magazine.

Google is a play on the word googol, which was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner, to represent the figure 1 followed by 100 zeroes. Google’s use of the term reflects the immense amount of information available on the web.

More information about Google can be found on the company’s website at www.google.com.

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Google is a trademark of Google, Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.

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