The tech giant is celebrating its 20th birthday with a new Google Doodle marking the special occasion. 

Founded 20 years ago, the company is marking the occasion with a Google Doodle around the world. 

This year’s doodle features letter-shaped balloons attached to a gift box. Tapping plays a YouTube video that animates popular searches from around the globe over the past two decades. 

The various terms are Y2K, Pluto losing its status as a planet, Royal Wedding, 2012 on the Mayan calendar, and avocado toast. It ends with a thank you note from Google: 

Twenty (ish ??) years ago, two Stanford Ph.D. students launched a new search engine with a bold mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Though much has changed in the intervening years—including now offering Search in more than 150 languages and over 190 countries—Google is still dedicated to building products for everyone.

Today’s video Doodle takes a stroll down memory lane by exploring popular searches all over the world throughout the last two decades.

So whether you’ve searched for the status of your favorite object orbiting the sun, the latest on the world’s biggest events, or how to impress on the dance floor.

Turning back, flipping forward: how we’re marking 20(ish) years of Google this month → https://t.co/bxzOlsDTma pic.twitter.com/vooF1LCLVB

— Google (@Google) September 4, 2018

On this day in 1998, two students at Stanford University launched the new search engine, with the aim of making the world’s information accessible to all. Google Search is now available in more than 150 languages and over 190 countries. 

Google was founded by Sergey Brin and Larry Page. In 1996, the two struck a partnership, and built a search engine that used links to determine the importance of individual pages on the World Wide Web. However, Google Inc was officially born in 1998, after Brin and Page received a check for $100,000 from Andy Bechtolsheim. 

Did you know Brin and Page had initially named Google, Backrub? In 1996, they renamed Backrub to Google - a play on the mathematical expression for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros. They believed the name aptly reflected their mission “to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” 

While Google doesn’t provide precise statistics on exactly how many queries it processes, to has previously said that there are ‘trillions’ of searches made each year. 

Share This Post