Everyone's favourite and most common 'go-to' place on the internet, search engine Google celebrates its 21st birthday today. Founded on September 27, in 1998 this search engine stands to be among the strongest pillar for anyone with access to the internet. The various products and services like Gmail, Google Photos, Maps, Android system, people all over are grateful for its existence. Did you know, the search engine started as a research project between two Stanford University PhD students Sergey Brin and Larry Page? Today, that project has grown into a billion-dollar market. On Google's 21st birthday, we give you more such mindboggling facts about this search engine.

To mark the special day, Google has made a doodle with an old-time desktop with Google's homepage on it. People online are also sharing their fun moments with the search engine and wishing a very happy birthday to their favourite 'go-to' place. Today, it is used all over the world in over 100 languages and answers trillions of search queries every year. Check out some interesting facts about Google, which you probably didn't know about.

Mindblowing Facts About Google

  • The name of Google is derived from 'googol' which is a mathematical term for 1 followed by 100 zeros.

  • The original name for Google was 'Backrub' because of its analysis of the web's "back links."

  • One of the interesting ways of the company to adopt a 'low-carbon approach' is using goats to mow the lawn on their headquarters. A herd of 200 well-trained goats were got in the year 2009 to take out the grasslands.

  • To get in new employees into their office, the search engine uses a web tool called foo.bar to recruit new people. Using search codes and what people looked for online, they decided if the user (employee) is up for a challenge.

  • While Google is known for making doodles on special days, the first-ever Google Doodle was for Burning Man Festival in Nevada. A Burning Man stick figure was an "a comical message to Google users that the founders were 'out of office.'"

  • Gmail which serves to millions across the internet was launched on April Fools' Day in 2004! Each April Fools' Day, Google makes, add some features to fool its users, but Gmail wasn't a prank but a service booming into the future.

  • The Google Image search was launched in the year 2001 with a whopping 250 million images on the day of its launch.

  • Google has a pet T-rex named Stan, in its California headquarters. It is a way of founders to remind the employees to not let Google go extinct.

Did you know of these facts about the biggest search engine? Over the years, we have seen the search engine evolve. We too wish Google, very Happy birthday and are also grateful for being there!

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 27, 2019 11:15 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).