“Google” vs. “google” – Is It Capitalized?

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Danielle McLeod

Danielle McLeod is a highly qualified secondary English Language Arts Instructor who brings a diverse educational background to her classroom. With degrees in science, English, and literacy, she has worked to create cross-curricular materials to bridge learning gaps and help students focus on effective writing and speech techniques. Currently working as a dual credit technical writing instructor at a Career and Technical Education Center, her curriculum development surrounds student focus on effective communication for future career choices.

Google has become a commonplace term used in everyday speech to indicate the need to search for an answer. To google something is synonymous with “looking up” information or getting a lead on specific research materials despite the word indicating a specific search engine.

Because it is part of our day-to-day speech, when you refer to it in writing, it can be confusing as to whether you should use Google capitalized or google in lowercase form. The answer depends on how you decide to use it and if you are referring to the search engine and popular company of the same name, or as a term to indicate you need to go look for information.

What Does Google Mean?

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Google, with a capital G, is the name of the company behind www.google.com, which was founded in the late 1990s.

Although it originally began as a search engine that allows one to find things on the internet, it is now a global corporation that has branded smart home technologies, internet programming solutions, top-of-the-line cellular phones, and many other tech gadgets you can take advantage of.

It is still one of the most reliable search engines available, however. And over the past few decades, it has found its name synonymous with the act of looking up information online.

As a noun, Google still very much represents a widely popular and successful tech business, but as a verb, “googling” will find you a myriad of information in mere seconds.

When to Capitalize Google

In order to determine whether you should capitalize google or not, you need to first determine what part of speech you are using the word as. As described above, google can work both as a noun and verb depending on context.

Google as a Noun Is Capitalized

Whenever you refer to Google as a company, it needs to be capitalized.

For example:

  • My Chromebook is powered by Google.
  • Use Google to look up the information.
  • I really like the new Google cell phones.
  • The Google smart home system is worth considering.

Google as a Verb Is Not Capitalized

As a verb, google (notice the lowercase g) means to use a search engine to find something – usually the answer to a question. Originally, this meant using Google specifically to search, but now the term is so widespread that the definition has shifted to mean using any method to find the answer on the internet. If someone else tells you to “go google” something, they mean “find out.”

To google something can easily be conjugated as well. The same rules of capitalization apply to the word no matter what conjugated form you use, so not, if you were wondering if googling is capitalized – it’s not.

You can have googled information, be googling information, or are going to google information.

For example:

  • I took out my phone and googled the weather to determine if I needed a coat or not.
  • After googling the address, Max discovered that there were three different auto part stores within three miles of his location.
  • I told my students to google the definition and then write down the most common answer.

Let’s Review

Google is a global tech company specializing in helpful online software and programs as well as tech gadgets for personal and home use.

When referring to Google as a company name or to indicate the brand, you need to capitalize it.

When using google as a verb to indicate the search for information, it can stay in lowercase form.