Google celebrates 28th birthday
Patna: Google is celebrating its 28th birthday on September 27, 2026, with a special Doodle that revives the chunky, 3D logo created in 1997. The artwork features the search engine’s first beta logo and includes an interactive trivia quiz about the company’s history.
The Doodle appears on Google’s homepage worldwide. It honors the company’s origins as a Stanford University research project called BackRub. Google later adopted the name Google after student Sean Anderson misspelled the mathematical term googol, which means one followed by 100 zeros.
Early Logo and Origins
Larry Page and Sergey Brin created the original logo using GIMP, a free image editing program. The 1997 design used a different color arrangement from the current scheme. The initial G was red, followed by a red-brown o, a blue o, a green g, a blocky yellow l, and a red e. The logo was used from September 1997 to September 1998 while the search engine was still in beta mode on Stanford servers.
Google was officially incorporated on September 4, 1998, after Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim wrote a $100,000 check to Page and Brin. The founders formed the company the next day so they could deposit the money.
Why September 27
Despite the September 4 incorporation date, Google has celebrated its birthday on September 27 since 2006. The date was chosen to commemorate a major expansion of Google’s web search index. In the early 2000s, the company marked its birthday on different dates in September. Google has not provided a definitive explanation for the September 27 date.
Doodle Tradition
The first Google Doodle appeared in August 1998 when Page and Brin placed a stick figure behind the second o in the logo. It was an out-of-office message to inform users they were attending the Burning Man festival in Nevada. The first birthday Doodle was published on September 27, 2002, marking Google’s fourth anniversary.
Celebrations at Bengaluru Office
Google employees at the Ananta office in Bengaluru, India, marked the occasion with a themed celebration. A techie named Gazal Arora shared a video on Instagram showing colorful decorations, a three-tier cake with Google product icons, and a buffet that included vegan cotton candy, Google-branded cookies, and dhokla. She captioned the video ‘Google’28th birthday celebration!’
Google now operates under its parent company Alphabet Inc., which was formed in 2015. Its products include Gmail, YouTube, Google Maps, Android, and Pixel phones. The company continues to develop its Gemini artificial intelligence platform.
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