ig = iGoogle

For quite a while now (read: several years) I have wondered why Google’s personalized home page had the address www.google.com/ig.  Of course, I should have noticed long before today that the “ig” stood for “iGoogle,” Google’s name for the personalized home page.

What is interesting, however, is that the url was www.google.com/ig well before the home page was called “iGoogle.”  It used to be called something along the lines of “Google Personal.”  Which is why, at that time, it was very confusing that the url ended in “ig.”

With the advent of “iGoogle” it all becomes clear, but I wonder why Google took so long to change the name to match the URL.  Any ideas?  The only one I can think of is that Google wanted to ensure that Apple wouldn’t get mad at it for using an “i-” name.