Google's 28th birthday became a major search trend on September 27 after the company changed its homepage to a special birthday Doodle.
The 2026 Doodle looks back at Google's early identity, featuring a nostalgic logo from the company's beginnings. Google said the artwork celebrates its 28th birthday and also directs users toward a trivia experience covering the company's history, culture and milestones.
Editorial Insight
Key Highlights
Important points readers should notice.
Issue/Event: Google celebrated its 28th birthday with a special Doodle.
Location: Global / Google homepage.
Authority/Organisation: Google.
Action Taken: A nostalgic birthday Doodle featuring Google's early visual identity was displayed on September 27.
Impact: The birthday celebration triggered renewed interest in Google's history and the reason behind its September 27 birthday tradition.
The date of Google's birthday celebration, however, has an interesting history.
Google Inc. was officially incorporated on September 4, 1998. Yet Google has traditionally celebrated its birthday on September 27, a date it has used for its annual birthday Doodle for many years. Google itself acknowledged the difference in a 2018 retrospective, describing its exact founding date as a matter of historical debate while confirming that September 27 had become its established birthday celebration date.
The distinction has once again attracted attention because the 2026 celebration marks nearly three decades since Larry Page and Sergey Brin's search project developed into one of the world's most widely used technology companies.
Editorial Analysis
Why This Matters
Google's birthday has become more than a corporate anniversary because its search engine and other products have played a major role in the development of the modern internet. The September 27 date also provides an unusual piece of technology history: Google's official incorporation date and its traditional birthday celebration date are different. That distinction makes the Google Birthday 2026 story relevant beyond the Doodle itself.
