Google’s new mission: Help create and spread knowledge

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It’s almost impossible to talk about Google without talking about search. Search was Google’s first -- and still its most important –- endeavor.

Yet Google is giving search an update. One of eight product groups within Google, search has been renamed the ‘knowledge group.’

Michael Arrington at TechCrunch unearthed a Securities and Exchange Commission filing from last month that, in announcing the company’s new management lineup, confirms the change.

Apparently, Google is no longer content to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Larry Page, who recently returned as CEO, has a broader and even more ambitious mandate: To help create and spread knowledge. The push inside Google is focused on prioritizing higher quality content.

Google confirmed the creation of the knowledge group but declined to comment on it. The idea seems to be to get Google employees to think about their mission differently, not to speak about it publicly.

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-- Jessica Guynn