News Courtesy of Fortune.com:

How time flies. I’ve been browsing the internet since the mid-90’s, but I’m hard-pressed to recall what search engine I used before Google came into existence back in 1998. Yahoo? Or maybe Altavista? Whatever it was, it’s now a distant memory.

The key to Google’s success throughout all these years has been their unwillingness to rest on their laurels. They continue to expand and complement their search engine with a variety of different products. I remember when they acquired YouTube in 2005 for an unprecedented $1.65 billion. A move that has paid enough immensely as the valuation of YouTube is estimated to be at least 20 times that amount.

This proves the point that they can have their cake and eat it too. They cater to many different individuals and businesses. Obviously, Google Search is what they are famous for. But just think of how they have further capitalized on that core service. Google Ads (formerly Adwords) is a cash cow in its own right with people bidding against one another for top ad placements. They’ve also revamped the pricing model for their developer API’s for things like map embeds. They simply refuse to remain stagnant!

So happy birthday Google! You’ve managed to remain king of the search engines for quite some time. However, the little guys such as Bing and DuckDuckGo are starting to catch up. Maybe they will never reach the same level of success, but they should at least serve as a reminder to keep the pedal to the metal.