Google Marks 26th Birthday: A Look Back at Its Origins
Today, 27th September, Google celebrates its 26th birthday. Although the company was officially incorporated on 4th September 1998, it has chosen 27th September as its commemorative date.
Google’s journey began in 1996 as a research project called “BackRub” at Stanford University. PhD students Larry Page and Sergey Brin developed the project, which evolved into the search engine we know today. The pair officially founded Google in 1998.
To mark the occasion, the company shared an image on X (formerly Twitter) showcasing its first search interface from 1998. The image features Google’s original logo and indicates that the search engine had indexed 25 million pages at the time. Current estimates suggest that Google now indexes hundreds of billions of pages, reflecting the vast expansion of the internet over the past two decades.
Started on 27/09/1998 and we made countless memories along the way ❤️ #HappyBirthdayGoogle pic.twitter.com/7VWD5U2ycv
— Google India (@GoogleIndia) September 26, 2024
Google’s innovative PageRank algorithm, which ranked web pages based on their relevance and importance determined by backlinks, set it apart from contemporary search engines that relied primarily on keyword frequency.
Since its inception, Google has grown from a search engine into a global technology company offering a wide range of products and services. Today, the company is led by CEO Sundar Pichai, who is of Indian origin.