when was google invented

Google was officially founded as a company in early September 1998, when Google Inc. was incorporated in Menlo Park, California.

Quick Scoop: The Exact Date

Most historical timelines and tech histories state that Google was founded on September 4, 1998 , when Larry Page and Sergey Brin incorporated Google Inc. in a garage in Menlo Park, California. This is the date most people mean when they ask “when was Google invented?” because it marks the birth of Google as a real company, not just a university project.

However, some reference works and academic-style summaries list September 7, 1998 as the date Google Inc. was founded or incorporated, reflecting slight differences in how they record the milestone. Because of this, you may see both dates mentioned in books and articles, even though September 4 has become the most widely cited “birthday” for Google.

Before That: The “BackRub” Era

Long before the official incorporation date, the idea behind Google was already taking shape at Stanford University. Around 1995–1996, Larry Page and Sergey Brin started a research project called BackRub , a search engine that ranked pages using what became the PageRank algorithm.

By 1997, the pair had adopted the name Google , a playful twist on the mathematical term “googol” (1 followed by 100 zeros), to reflect the huge amount of information they wanted to organize. The domain google.com was registered on September 15, 1997, about a year before the company itself was formally founded.

Why 1998 Matters So Much Today

1998 is seen as the turning point because it marks the moment when a university research project became a startup that would reshape the web. Once Google Inc. was incorporated in September 1998, the team moved into a garage office, secured early funding (famously including a check for $100,000 from Andy Bechtolsheim), and began scaling beyond Stanford’s servers.

From there, Google quickly evolved past competing search engines of the late 1990s, becoming the default way people look up information—so in most “how old is Google?” pieces, the age is counted from that 1998 founding date.

TL;DR: When someone asks “when was Google invented?” the standard answer is: Google was founded on September 4, 1998 , after several years of earlier research under the name BackRub.