Google marks 25th birthday with a nostalgic logo roll

Google doodle commemorates 25 years of Google with a nostalgic animation on its homepage that runs through earlier versions of its logo to today's doodle, which shows the two 'o's in Google replaced by the number 25.

"While here at Google we’re oriented towards the future, birthdays can also be a time to reflect," wrote Google about its doodle of today. "Much has changed since 1998 — including our logo as seen in today’s Doodle — but the mission has remained the same: to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful."

Google Inc, as it was then better known, was founded by Sergey Brin and Larry Page in 1998. They met as doctoral students pursuing a computer science program at Stanford University in the late 1990s.

As they both understood their shared vision, they decided to enhance accessibility of the World Wide Web (www). After working tirelessly and through gradual progress, they relocated the operation to a rented garage that became Google's first office. On 27 September 1998, the duo finally founded Google Inc.

"Twenty-five years ago we launched Google Search to help you find answers to questions big and small. Since then, billions of people have turned to our products to do just that — to satisfy their curiosity. To start a business. To start a journey. To cut a pineapple," Google wrote in its latest blog post celebrating 25 successful years.

Today, more than 70 per cent of the world's online search requests are handled by Google. While it began as an online search firm, it slowly expanded and now it offers more than 50 internet services including e-mail, browser, lens and much more.

"Larry and Sergey had an ambitious vision for a new kind of search engine to help people make sense of the waves of information moving online. The product they built, Google Search, went on to help billions of people around the world get answers to their questions," wrote Google CEO Sundar Pichai in a recent blog post about Google completing 25 years.

Reflecting on the future possibilities, Pichai wrote: "As we look ahead, I’ve been reflecting on the commitment from our original founder’s letter in 2004: 'to develop services that improve the lives of as many people as possible — to do things that matter'."

"Our search for answers will drive extraordinary technology progress over the next 25 years. And in 2048, if, somewhere in the world, a teenager looks at all we’ve built with AI and shrugs, we’ll know we succeeded. And then we’ll get back to work. Thanks for an amazing 25," he concluded.