To have your brand name enter the English language, as did Portaloo, Biro or Heroin, is a sure sign that your product is a success. When it goes on to become a verb, that represents a cultural penetration that’s immeasurably more powerful. Hoover achieved this early in the 20th century and in recent years Photoshop shows every sign of making it too.

Above all others, though, the modern business that has become most embedded in the language is Google. For a great many web users, Google is the internet. It’s the first port of call when searching for information, increasingly for personal e-mail, and especially for printing out directions to an unfamiliar pub just before the end of the office day. This week's launch of the ultra-fast, super-slick Chrome web browser marks the start of a new era for Google, just as it prepares to enter its second decade.

We look back at some of the milestones that have made Google the best-known website on Earth.

December 2005: the Big Daddy Update

In search of technology’s new frontiers

After ten years Google has achieved a stunning presence on the internet. Its ambitions are even wider, reports Mike Harvey

Related Links

• Silverstein lost in admiration for giant’s growth

Nothing less than a total reinvention of Google’s database the Big Daddy Update was an attempt to purge the thousands of sites built by less scrupulous webmasters to ‘game’ Google’s algorithm and skew the search results in their favour. Getting on the first page of Google results for any given keyword can be an immensely lucrative asset and search engine optimisers devote their working lives to making that happen for their employers. This update meant that they had to start all over again.

April 2004: Gmail

Gmail, later Googlemail in the UK, is a simple online e-mail client not unlike Microsoft’s immensely successful Hotmail service. Rolled out initially on an invitation-only basis it grew rapidly in popularity, not least because of its e-mail storage capacity. Initially capped at 1GB, which dwarfed contemporary rivals, it now has a 7GB capacity. It’s frequently used by media mavens who need to store large video or audio files free from the constraints imposed by corporate networks.

November 2003: The Florida Update

Like the Big Daddy Update, an attempt to flush the money changers out of the internet temple. It affected a great many legitimate websites, causing an immense outcry among "white hat" ethical SEOs but was barely noticed by Google’s huge user-base.

1999 Onwards: The special logos

A key factor that has preserved Google’s loveable ‘do no harm’ image despite colossal financial growth is the company's playful way with its own logo. Since Christmas 1999, the company has employed special commemorative logos for everything from the Burning Man Festival to the birthday of Spanish painter Diego Velázquez

September 2002: Google News

Google’s news browser was launched in beta in September 2002, providing a news front page collating 4,500 leading news sources into one global newspaper. Links from the free service are as prized by news outlets like Times Online as Google’s web search results are by the purveyors of books, electronic goods and impotence medication.

August 2007: Google demonstrates a rare fallibility

As well as the major purges, Google also conducts a rolling programme of 'spam' website deletion. It was inevitable that sooner of later they would accidentally delete one of their own, to the widespread amusement of web watchers everywhere.

May 2007: Street View

Google Maps launched in 2005, proving an immediate boon to office workers on their way to a party. It was the addition of Street View that turned the Google Maps page from a dull necessity to an entertainment destination in its own right.

August 2001: The money

Eric Schmidt's arrival in 2001 set the idealistic start-up on the road to becoming a profits powerhouse, instigating Google’s Adwords and Adsense campaigns, giving every blogger the chance to become a commercial web publisher .

October 2006: YouTube

Just one of a welter of canny acquisitions by Google, the purchase of YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock brought together two of the most popular internet properties under one umbrella.

June 2006: Google enters the language

The sure sign that you have arrived, Google first appeared in the OED in June 2006.

Explore Tech & Web

• Personal Tech

• The Web

• Gadgets & Gaming