A little-known startup called Google first launched to change the world 15 years ago today — give or take a few days.
The exact date of Google's launch is a little unclear, as the company has celebrated its birthday on several different dates over the years. Technically, the company registered the Google.com domain on Sept. 15, 1997 — more than 16 years ago — and filed to be incorporated on Sept. 4, 1998. Whatever the case, Google says it is officially celebrating its 15th birthday on Friday.
See also: In the Garage Where Google Was Born
In honor of Google's special day, we've pulled together 15 stats showing just how much the company and its products have grown in its first 15 years.
Google indexed 26 million web pages when it launched in 1998. Now, it indexes 60 trillion web pages.
Google answered 10,000 search queries a day when it was in beta in 1998. Today, Google handles more than 100 billion searches every month.
The company hired its first employee in September 1998 and had 1,907 employees as of March 31, 2004, a few months before going public. By the end of last quarter, Google had 44,777 employees.
Google's first Doodle was published in 1998 to show that founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin were out of the office attending the Burning Man music festival. There have since been more than 1,000 Google Doodles.
Google made its first public acquisition in 2001 when it bought Deja.com's Usenet Discussion Service. It has now made more than 100 acquisitions to date.
When Google went public on Aug. 19, 2004, its stock opened at $85 a share. Google stock opened at $874 on Friday morning, a more than 10-fold increase.
Google had a market cap of $23 billion on the day it went public. Its current market cap is just more than $290 billion.
The company reported revenue of $961.9 million in 2003, the year before it went public. In 2012, Google reported its first $50 billion revenue year.
Page and Brin opened a Google bank account in September 1998 that consisted of a $100,000 check from the co-founder of Sun Microsystems. They are now personally worth about $23 billion each.
Google acquired Android in 2005. There have now been more than one billion Android device activations and 50 billion mobile apps downloaded.
Google kicked off its Street View efforts in 2007 to map the world. Since then, Google has driven more than 6 million miles across 3,000 cities in 52 countries.
Google introduced its social network Google+ a little over two years ago. As of the end of last year, it had passed 500 million members, 135 million of which were reportedly active users.
Chrome, Google's browser, launched in 2008. Four years later, it passed Internet Explorer to become the most popular web browser and currently has more than 750 million users.
Google had 38% of mobile ad revenue worldwide in 2011, according to eMarketer. This year, the company is expected to take home 53% of global mobile ad revenue, or about $8.8 billion.
YouTube had around 20 million unique monthly visitors in 2006 when it was acquired by Google, according to multiple estimates at the time. The video service now reports having more than one billion unique visitors each month who collectively stream 6 billion hours of video.
Image: Justin Sullivan/Getty
Enter "Google Gravity" in the search bar. Hit "I'm feeling lucky" (if you have Google Instant enabled, it's on the right hand side of the suggested searches). Then watch your world fall down.
Simply search for the word "askew." We dare you not to tilt your head.
Search for the Walker Texas Ranger star, hit I'm Feeling Lucky, and Google will school you in Norrisology.
Searching for ASCII art -- the kind built out of characters -- is about the nerdiest thing you can do. Google salutes you with a special logo.
Here's one for word nerds and philosophy majors. Search for "recursion" and Google asks "did you mean recursion?"
This one started life as an April Fool's joke, but is still around at google.com/mentalplex. Baffle your less Internet-savvy family and friends!
The Google doodle that launched a thousand lost hours of productivity will live forever at google.com/pacman.
Here's where Google easter eggs start to get a little more complex. Go to Google Reader, then use your cursor keys thus: up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A. A ninja then pops onto your screen and into your search box. Thankfully, this still works in the new version of Google Reader.
Set your iGoogle homepage to the beach theme. Wait until 3:14am (or if you can't, just move your clock forward). What monster this way comes? Could we be on the shores of Loch Ness?
This one began life as an easter egg, and became so well-loved that Google incorporated it as a feature in Google Earth. Click on Tools > Enter Flight Simulator, and you're off and flying around the planet. Bon voyage!