Google marks anniversary of its 1998 founding

On September 4, 1998, Larry Page and Sergey Brin officially registered Google Inc. in California. The company began as a research project at Stanford University, where the two doctoral students developed a search engine originally named ‘BackRub’.

Unlike contemporary search engines that relied on keyword matching, Google utilized the ‘PageRank’ algorithm, which organized results based on the relationship and links between web pages. This innovation fundamentally changed how information is accessed on the internet.

The company’s early operations were based in a garage in Menlo Park provided by Susan Wojcicki. Initial funding included a $100,000 check from Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim. From its beginnings as a startup, Google expanded into a massive ecosystem including Gmail, Android, Maps, and YouTube. Today, its parent company, Alphabet Inc., holds a dominant position in the global search market and is valued at over $2 trillion.