Google domain enters adulthood, doesn't doodle

New Delhi, Sep 15: Internet giant Google has come of age. Its domain Google.com turned 18 on Tuesday, processing over 40,000 search queries every second on average.

The page which has been answering queries for all, providing shortcuts to all Google services was registered on September 15, 1997, and the first doodle inspired by the Burning Man Festival in US showed up on August 30, 1998. In 1998, it answered ten thousand search queries per day.

The company itself was started on September 4, 1998.

The Internet giant had released search versions in ten languages on May 9, 2000. Currently, the search service is available in 150 languages. By 2020, Google expects 600 million online users with online videos being accessed by 500 million people.

Interestingly, Google, which had became the largest search engine in the year 2000, kept silent about its domain name registration anniversary and did not release any doodle on the occasion, which is unlike the Menlo, California-based company's behaviour. It does release a doodle for every big occassion or event.

One September 1 this year, the company adopted a new logo and branding.

"The new branding is to reckon with a world of seamless computing reflecting how Google is working for users across an endless number of devices and different kinds of inputs (such as tap, type and talk)," the company had said.

Also, the co-founders brought Google under a bigger parent company - Alphabet - in August.

"This newer Google is a bit slimmed down, with the companies that are pretty far afield of our main Internet products contained in Alphabet instead," founder Larry Page wrote on August 10.

In July 2014, Google Maps was made available in Hindi language and Hindi voice navigation was added followed by the acceptance of Indian accents on Google voice in October 2014.

According to data made available in 2013, Google's mobile operating system Android passed one billion device activations. The company introduced budget smartphones - Android One - in India in September 2014 in partnerships with three smartphone makers.

Currently, the company is working on a sister operating system (OS) of Android called Chrome OS as well as extending the Android series. Marshmallow is the latest Android OS the company is working on.

In December 2000, the company had launched Google Toolbar - a browser plugin that makes it possible to search without visiting the Google homepage.

The toolbar launch was followed by Google Images, Google News, Google Books and Orkut in July 2001, September 2002, December 2003 and January 2004, respectively.

The company also launched Gmail in October 2004 which currently has over 425 million users followed by opening of new offices in Bangalore and Hyderabad.

IANS