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google 10th birthday Happy Birthday Google! We Want Cake!Today seems to be the day that Google has chosen to celebrate its 10th birthday.  Ten years ago, who had heard of AdSense?  AdWords?  Quality Score?  Google slaps?  No one.

In 1998, "Ray of Light" by Madonna was the #1 song in the U.S.  "Saving Private Ryan" was the top-grossing movie of the year.  Oh, and the average price of a gallon of gas in the U.S. was a mere $1.03.  My how times have changed.

If this is true, then why does it seem like Google has been around so much longer?  Has any other company changed the landscape of an industry the way Google has?  The only company that even seems to come close is Microsoft.

In reality, Google is really almost 13 years old if you go by their corporate history page: “By January of 1996, Larry and Sergey had begun collaboration on a search engine called BackRub, named for its unique ability to analyze the “back links” pointing to a given website.”

If, however, you decide to go by the date that Google's domain name was registered, they’ll actually turn 11 on September 15.

Regardless, the date Google celebrates as their birth month is September 1998. They celebrated on September 7, the date that they incorporated, until the year 2005. Since 2005 (and also once  in '02), they’ve celebrated on September 27.

The reason Google sets this date, according to Danny Sullivan, who wrote about this last year, is that they pushed their birthday up in 2005 to allow for the announcement of an index size milestone.

Whatever the reason, Happy Birthday Google.  I want come cake!  Or at least no Quality Score for one day.  ;-)

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