Every day, billions of people around the world depend upon a simple phrase to find answers, solve problems, or satisfy curiosity, by “Just Googling it.” Over the past few decades, Google has become much more than just a search engine; it is more or less like a part of our daily lives.Today, Google turns 27, and the platform celebrated its milestone with a feeling of nostalgia by changing the doodle to the original classic, the first design dating back to when it was launched.
Google’s first doodle from 1998 (Photo: Google)
How Google began, and the story behind the search engine
Google’s origins date back to 1995 at Stanford University, where two PhD students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, crossed paths. Interestingly, their first meeting wasn’t exactly friendly. According to popular stories, they disagreed on nearly everything. Yet, from those early debates grew a partnership that would change the internet forever.Larry and Sergey started working together on a project to improve how information was organized and accessed online. They developed a search engine that ranked web pages based on how many other pages linked to them, aiming to provide more relevant and accurate search results than existing tools. Initially, they called their project “BackRub,” a quirky name symbolising how the engine analysed backlinks. However, as the project began to gain momentum, they decided to rename it.
Google’s 27th birthday homepage
Where did the name Google come from
The name “Google” came from a brainstorming session where they wanted a word that represented the huge amount of information their search engine could handle. Basically, from the term “googol”, which means a mathematical expression for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros, that perfectly encapsulated this idea.Stories have it that when Sean Anderson, a fellow graduate student, checked the domain name, he accidentally typed “Google” instead of “Googol.” The founders liked the sound of it, and “Google.com” was registered within hours.
Getting nostalgic with Google’s 27 birthday doodle
Google’s real birthday is not actually today
Although Google officially began as a company on September 4, 1998, it was backed by an initial investment of $100,000 from Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems. This funding helped Larry and Sergey move their project out of their dorm rooms and into the broader world.It initially began in early September, but the company chose to celebrate its birthday on September 27 starting in the mid-2000s. This date marks a key internal milestone when Google indexed a record number of web pages, symbolizing its rapid growth and expanding reach.Since then, Google has exploded into a tech giant, developing a vast ecosystem including Gmail, YouTube, Android, and much more. Despite this growth, it remains the go to name for online search, and its iconic “Google it” phrase is part of everyday language worldwide.