Google celebrated its 27th birthday on September 27, 2025, featuring a special doodle that brought back the company’s original 1998 logo design. The commemorative doodle showcases Google’s first-ever wordmark, transporting users back to the company’s humble beginnings in the late 1990s. Founded by Stanford PhD students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google has grown from a garage-based startup to a global technology powerhouse serving billions of users daily.

Google wasn’t always called Google

The company’s path to its current name involved an interesting twist of fate. Originally called “BackRub,” the search engine was renamed after a brainstorming session in 1997. The founders wanted a name reflecting the vast amount of information their platform could provide.The name “Google” emerged from a misspelling of “googol,” a mathematical term representing the number 1 followed by 100 zeros. When Stanford graduate student Sean Anderson searched for domain availability, he accidentally typed “Google” instead of “Googol.” Page immediately liked the misspelled version, and google.com was registered within hours.

Why Google celebrates its birthday on September 27

While Google was officially incorporated on September 4, 1998, the company has celebrated its birthday on September 27 since the mid-2000s. This date commemorates a significant milestone in the growth of Google’s search index, symbolizing the platform’s rapid expansion.Today, Google’s ecosystem extends far beyond search, encompassing services like Gmail, Google Maps, Chrome browser, and YouTube. The company’s 27th birthday doodle serves as both a celebration of its achievements and a reminder of the breakthrough moments that can emerge from ordinary beginnings, as Google’s founders once worked from a simple garage in Menlo Park.