Google vs. Facebook: How do they compare?

Although Facebook and Google are wildly different companies, it’s easy to think of the two as comparable when it comes to leading Silicon Valley; after all, few companies are in a position to dominate internet usage worldwide.

Especially in emerging markets, many people will come online for the first time on Facebook (perhaps thinking that the internet is Facebook), while their first experience with search will likely be on Google.

Both companies are very different when it comes to traffic, revenue, and corporate structure; Facebook is, after all, a social network that’s increasingly looking for ways to get people to share content and information online, while Google is a multifaceted company that offers email, cloud computing, maps, enterprise solutions, video, analytics, a philanthropic arm, vehicle that invests in startups (Google for Entrepreneurs), and even offline projects designed to bring everyone online.

Looking at the age of the two giants, some might think it’s unfair to compare them, but they continue to go head to head in terms of site traffic, so it’s hard not to.

Launched in 2004, Facebook is now 9 years old and Google, launched in 1997, is almost double its age. But Facebook still manages to be regularly compared to the search engine giant, even though Facebook is still far behind when looking at yearly revenue, market value and companies acquired.

Boostlikes.com, a social media solution company, recently released an infographic detailing how Google and Facebook stack up against each other. When you look at the graphic, you can see that, when compared to Google, Facebook has a lot of catching up to do. Google pulled in nearly ten times the amount of revenue that Facebook did in 2011, and its current market value is three times that of Facebook, at US $190 million in 2012.

Perhaps a major part of their growth, Google has acquired over four times as many companies as Facebook, and has almost ten times the amount of employees that Facebook does.

Check out the infographic below for more on how they compare