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Google Web Server (GWS) is the name for the web server software that Google uses for their web infrastructure.

According to Netcraft's Web Server Survey in October 2009, Google Web Server makes Google the #4 developer of web server software among all domains, with 6.00% market share, and the #3 developer among active sites, with 13.56% market share. ^[1]

Google is intentionally vague about GWS, saying only that it is a custom-built server that runs on Linux.^[2] There is some speculation that GWS is a modified version of Apache, which would be plausible given Google's proclivity for modifiying open source software for its own internal use.^[3] The web server used can be checked by typing GET command as shown below on command prompt.

HEAD http://www.google.com HTTP/1.1

Connection: Keep-Alive

Proxy-Connection: Keep-Alive

Content-Length: 221

Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2009 06:38:37 GMT

Location: http://www.google.com/

Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8

Server: gws

Cache-Control: private

See also

• Google platform

References