When is Google’s birthday? The major thing wrong with the search engine's celebratory doodle

Google is celebrating its 18th birthday. The only problem is that it’s had at least six 18th birthdays already.

The company is showing everyone a cute, celebratory doodle on 27 September to mark the company’s coming-of-age. It shows Google’s “G” blowing up a balloon to spell out the rest of its name – but blowing it up too much, and being carried off into the sky.

But there’s nothing especially meaningful about the 27th in the Google timeline. There’s at least six other days that have been celebrated as Google’s birthday – and none of them are any more meaningful than any of the others.

Google Doodles

Indeed, Google might not even be 18. If we use one date – when the Google.com domain was first registered – then the company turned 19 on 15 September this year.

But if Google was 18, and so founded in 1998, then there’s a lot of dates to celebrate too. Google was given its first investment of $100,000 in August 1998 – paid to Google Inc, which didn’t actually exist yet.

All of that confusion led Google to admit in 2013 that it didn’t really know when its birthday was.

As such, it has celebrated on at least four days in September: the 7th, the 8th, the 26th and the 27th. The latter – which appears to be what Google’s sticking to for now – was first celebrated in 2002, on Google’s 4th birthday, though the company has celebrated a range of other dates since.

But in fact, Google has spent much of the month celebrating its birthday – sending out posts and decorating various parts of its headquarters. Google is perhaps so big that it can’t just be pinned down to one day – apart from when it needs to make a Doodle for it.

Source: Independent