【2006 Archives】

Google turns eighteen today. 006 Archivesinternet giant, which has been gigantic for the majority of those 18 years, has put up a celebratory doodle on its home page, as it has done nearly every year since its humble beginnings in a garage in Menlo Park, California.

And every year, the same question arises: Is today's really Google's birthday?

After all, the company was founded on Sept. 4, 1998. The project that preceded the company, started at Stanford by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, was launched in January, two years earlier. And the google.com domain name was registered on Sept. 17, 1997.

As is customary, many media outlets are questioning the validity of the Sept. 27th date, which does not appear to be directly related to any significant milestone in Google's history. Add to that the fact that Google has, on occasion, posted the Google birthday doodle on different date, and nothing seems real anymore. Have we been lied to all this time?

Relax. Sept. 27 is Google's birthday, simply because the company chose this date as its birthday. True, the date might not have a special significance, but this happens to a lot of tech companies (Twitter is one example). Was the company truly born when it was conceived in a garage? Or was it the incorporation date? Or the date when the site was first launched?

It's easy: It's the date the company chose as its birthday. And Google has posted the birthday doodle on exactly this date since 2005 (interestingly, there was no birthday doodle on the company's 12th birthday). That's 11 years, folks. Let's put this one to rest.

Check out the latest doodle, and all the ones that came before it, on this page.