Google celebrates 20th birthday, readies for next chapter of Search

It has been exactly 20 years since Google arrived in the cyberspace to rule the world wide web. To celebrate its milestone 20th birthday on Thursday, September 27, Google posted a nostalgic video as its trademark doodle on the home page of the search engine.

The video features interesting searches through the years covering holidays, events, achievements, people, food, planets and languages.

Google came into being in 1998 to answer queries of the entire world. Started as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, both Ph.D. students at the Stanford University, US, the search engine became the go-to place for all sorts of general information in no time.

Google was able to bring information scattered across the world under its umbrella and make it accessible to all. It now offers searches in more than 150 languages in over 190 countries.

From a simple search engine, Google has become a tech giant making itself indispensable in people’s lives across the world.

Thursday’s Google Doodle is a video that walks down the memory lane exploring popular searches across the world in the last two decades. From ‘what will happen on Y2K’ to ‘How to tie a tie’ to ‘how do you pronounce gif’  — the video features many interesting questions Google has answered in the last two decades.

“Although more than 2,000 Doodles have adorned its homepage, Google has kept its site looking fresh by creating different variations of its logo, inspired by cultural icons, events and phenomena such as Pac-Man, the birth of hip-hop and more,” Google said in a statement.

In a blog post, Ben Gomes, VP, Search, News and Assistant, at Google said while almost everything had changed about “technology and the information available to us, the core principles of Search have stayed the same”.

Gomes sought to share a first look at the next chapter of Search, which he said would be driven by “three fundamental shifts”. These are:

The shift from answers to journeys: This will help users resume tasks “where you left off”. “We’re bringing new features to Search that help you with ongoing information needs,” Gomes said.

The shift from queries to providing a query-less way to get to information: Google will surface relevant information related to a users’ interests, even when they don’t have a specific query in mind.

The shift from text to a more visual way of finding information: Google plans to bring more visual content to Search and “completely redesign Google Images” to make finding information easier.