Why Google Celebrates Its Birthday on September 27th

If you’ve ever noticed Google’s special doodles around late September, you might have wondered: Why does Google celebrate its birthday on September 27th? The answer is actually a mix of history and tradition.

Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in September 1998 while they were Ph.D. students at Stanford. But here’s the twist — Google doesn’t have just one official “birthday.” The company was incorporated on September 4th, 1998, yet over the years it has celebrated on different days throughout the month.

So why September 27th? In 2006, Google decided to mark its birthday on September 27th to line up with the anniversary of a milestone: the day they announced a record number of indexed pages. Since then, Google has consistently used September 27th as its official birthday, even though it’s not the actual incorporation date.

Today, the birthday doodle has become a yearly tradition — a reminder of how far Google has come from a small search engine project in a dorm room to one of the world’s most powerful tech companies. It’s also a quirky reflection of Google’s culture: flexible, unconventional, and always evolving.

So on September 27th, when you see Google’s celebratory doodle, you’re not just looking at a logo. You’re seeing a nod to innovation, milestones, and the story of how a garage startup turned into the search giant we all use today.