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User interface (UI): The look and feel of the part of a website visible to visitors. The UI is the website's face and includes the graphics, the text, the forms, and any other elements with which a user can interact.

Web server: A computer that delivers content, such as a web page, when requested to do so by another computer on a network. Or the software that runs on the computer that delivers the content. See Server.

Xoogler (pronounced "zoogler"): A former Googler. I coined this term as the name for a blog I maintain at Xooglers.blogspot.com, a gathering place for former Googlers to reminisce about the company's early days.

Acknowledgments

I was lucky long before I'd ever heard of Google.

My parents Marvin and Helene Edwards raised all their children with love and fairness, and instilled in us a desire to be upright and do good in the world. Not once have they wavered in their commitment to our happiness or hesitated to sacrifice to bring it about. When they could ill afford it, they helped fund my dreams and then gave me the confidence to pursue them. I can never repay the debt I owe them for their guidance, their patience, and their understanding.

My wife Kristen experienced all the pressures and insanity of a Silicon Valley startup without the compensating perks that I enjoyed. She didn't divorce me. For more than twenty-five years she has encouraged me, supported me, engaged me, and endured me. She is a ruthless editor and a stickler for facts. She has, on occasion, been the only reason I've remained sane. She is my best friend. "Gratitude" is an inadequate word for all I feel for her, but the end pages of a book about search technology hardly seem the place to delve deeper.

My children, Adam, Nathaniel, and Avalon, not only survived my frequent absences but became intelligent and accomplished beings despite my inattention. For that I thank them, as my guilt at being a negligent father is somewhat offset by their achievements. I hope that my becoming a more constant presence in their lives doesn't destroy the strong foundations upon which they have built such admirable success.

Many people deserve to be in this book but aren't. Some people are, but in a way that trivializes their contributions to Google's meteoric growth. I apologize to all who were truncated by the constraints of page limits or foreshortened because this tale is told from one marketer's perspective. You have earned recognition, and I hope this effort inspires others to publicly sing your praises.

To those Googlers and Xooglers who generously shared their time and their stories with me, I offer my deepest gratitude. Because of you, I understand more about Google now than I did when I was working in the Plex. I offer a special note of thanks to those who explained not once, not twice, but many, many times the complicated systems I still may have managed to mangle in these pages. Any such errors are clearly of my own making and not the fault of those who attempted to impart technological insights to a nontechnical mind.

Among that number are Gerald Aigner, Anurag Archarya, Mieke Bloomfield, Paul Bucheit, Orkut Buyukkotten, Bay Wei Chang, Matt Cutts, Jeff Dean, Ron Dolin, Sanjay Ghemawat, Ben Gomes, Urs Hölzle, Zain Kahn, Salar Kamangar, Ed Karrels, Deb Kelly, Keith Kleiner, Ross Konigstein, Chad Lester, Jane Manning, Amit Patel, Jim Reese, Larry Schwimmer, Ray Sidney, Craig Silverstein, Shawn Simpson, Ben Smith, Eric Veach, and Will Whitted.

Howard Gobioff would be on that list, had he not passed away in 2008. Howard was bright, funny, and full of opinions he happily shared. I respected his acumen and his principles and was saddened by the loss of his talent and his humor.

Those who provided much appreciated perspective on our business-side systems and our corporate culture include Charlie Ayers, Heather Cairns, Devin Ivester, Katina Johnson, Jim Kolotouros, David Krane, Alan Louie, Miriam Rivera, George Salah, Sheryl Sandberg, Stacy Sullivan, and Susan Wojcicki.

Sincere thanks