Introduction: How Old Is Google Today?

On September 4, 1998, Google was founded, the world’s most widely used search engine. Google is 27 years old as of April 2025. During these decades the company has grown out of a student project into one of the most important and biggest tech companies of the world. Google has completely rewritten the way to get information, created the online advertising market, and kept adding to its offerings in other industries.

Google began with a simple mission: “to provide free access to the world’s information in one place.” Its innovations in search, advertising platforms, artificial intelligence and mobile technology, remain built on the guiding force of this mission. Both last’s and this year, Google’s products affect billions of people around the world through services including Google Search, Gmail, YouTube, Google Maps and Android.

Quick Summary:

• Founded: September 4, 1998
• Founders: Larry Page and Sergey Brin
• Age: 27 years (as of April 2025)
• Original Office: Menlo Park, California garage
• Significant Milestones: Rise from YouTube and Android acquisitions, Alphabet restructuring IPO in 2004

The Birth of Google: When Was Google Created?

Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two Ph.D. students at Stanford University, founded Google while still working on a research project to better document how people search for information on the internet. PageRank, the algorithm the pair created to rank search results based on how many and how good a link is to a page improved search results in a more accurate and relevant way.

The project was called “BackRub” before it became Google, because it was about analyzing backlinks between web pages. But eventually the name was changed to Google — a friendly twist on ‘googol’, or the number 1 followed by 100 zeros, as it was intended to represent the huge sums of data they were meant to organize.

Officially, the company was founded on September 4, 1998, starting with a garage in Menlo park, California. Very quickly the search engine attracted attention due to speed, accuracy and minimalistic design — a contrast to Yahoo and AltaVista main page design.

The Early Years: How Long Has Google Been Around?

Google has been around for 27 years, and in its early days, it was a small but fast growing search engine. By this time in the 2000s, Google had taken over the lead in the search market.

Key Milestones in Google’s Early Years:

1998: That’s when Google launched its own search engine into the public.

1999: The company raised $25 million in venture capital funding to expand.

2000: They indexed over one billion web pages and became the largest search engine and announced Google AdWords, a first version of it, to generate revenue.

It was different from other search engines because the company’s PageRank algorithm gave the most relevant search results. Google also chose a clean homepage, a design that has become iconic, and speed and simplicity.

IPO and Expansion: When was Google Established as a Corporate Giant?

In 2004 Google’s rapid growth resulted in an Initial Public Offering (IPO) on August 19. It raised $1.67 billion, solidifying Google’s status as a big player in this tech world. But it was a turning point for Google from being a search engine company to becoming a global technology leader.

Expansion Through Key Acquisitions:

2005: They acquired Android, setting themselves in the mobile operating system market. Android later became the world’s most popular mobile OS.

2006: It acquired YouTube, and it positioned itself as the leader in online video.

2008: Boosted advertising capabilities with DoubleClick purchase.

Google not only launched publicly accessible products like the company’s world famous Google Maps and Google Analytics but also internal projects. Google’s moves here gave it a chance to diversify offerings and create a healthy multi-service ecosystem.

Key Milestones: Google Is How Old and Still Evolving

Over the years Google has continuously innovated to make new products and approaches that create new orbits for the tech landscape to orbit around.

Below is an overview of some key developments

• 1998: Google is officially founded.
• 1999: Gets investment to turbocharge growth.
• 2004: Google goes public.
• 2005: Introduces Google Maps, and acquires Android.
• 2006: YouTube purchases and becomes video content, leader.
• 2008: It launches Google Chrome, one of the most popular web browsers in the world.
• 2012: Lewis brings in Motorola Mobility to enter hardware market.
• 2015: Under Alphabet Inc., restructures to better manage its expanding array of businesses.
• 2016: Rejoins the race to the AI voice assistant market with launches of Google Assistant.
• 2023: Integrates AI into search results with the launch of Search Generative Experience (SGE).

AI and Mobile Technologies: As you can see they continue to focus on AI development, with cloud computing, machine learning and have partnered with DeepMind on AI research.

Google’s History: Criticism, Challenges, and Controversies

Yet Google has encountered lots of challenges and controversies through the years, up to the point even though it was successful. The company has been under antitrust investigation, privacy lawsuits and workplace controversies.

Notable Challenges:

Antitrust Issues: That’s why Google’s dominance in search and advertising markets have been considered fair game for legal attack by governments in the U.S. and Europe.

Privacy Concerns: Privacy lawsuits and regulatory fines follow Google’s data collection practices.

Workplace Controversies: In addition, the company has faced gender discrimination lawsuits and controversy over how it has handled diversity on the job.

In response to these challenges, Google is becoming more transparent, more private and developing new data policies.

FAQs

When was Google founded and by whom?

Larry Page and Sergey Brin created Google on September 4, 1998.

What year was Google founded?

Google was founded in 1998.

When was Google founded?

The Google we know today has been around for 27 years, which is a long time.

How has Google changed the internet landscape of today?

So Google has changed a huge amount, especially in the internet world, by making one most popular search engine, making after that in advertising, mobile technology, AI, and cloud computing. Billions of people around the world use its products every day.

Conclusion: How Old Is Google?

Technology has come a long way over the past few decades from a small garage startup to a global technology giant, Google being only one example. When we say that Google has a youthful mentality, we are not the only one to hold this opinion. Google today is a 27 years old and is leading in innovation in the fields of information interaction, technology and internet. However, the company stays plugged with its focus on AI, cloud computing and mobile technologies, which stand as the future of digital.

But Google has persisted, evolving, adapting and even growing its services, even after two decades, despite failing, and their mission to ‘organise the world’s information’ is not over.

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