Why September 27 Isn't Google's Birthdate: The Real Story Behind Google's Founding

Clearing Up the September 27 Myth

Every time you scroll through a social feed, you might see a post claiming that Google was born on September 27. The claim pops up often enough to look like a fact, but the official records say otherwise. The date most people cite—September 27—doesn’t line up with any major milestone in the company’s early days.

What actually happened on that day? Nothing significant for Google. The confusion likely stems from a misreading of internal memos or a simple typo that got recycled across the web. When you dig into reputable sources—company filings, interviews with the founders, and archived news—you’ll see a clear timeline that points elsewhere.

How Google Really Began

Back in 1996, two Ph.D. students at Stanford University, Google founding date Larry Page and Sergey Brin, started a research project they called BackRub. The program was designed to analyze the backlink structure of the web, a novel way to rank pages at the time.

By late 1996, BackRub was running on Stanford servers, and the duo began experimenting with a new name inspired by the mathematical term “googol”—the number 1 followed by 100 zeros. They registered the domain google.com on September 15, 1997, securing a web address that would soon become legendary.Fast forward to September 4, 1998: the day Page and Brin officially incorporated Google Inc. in Menlo Park, California. That paperwork marked the transition from a university experiment to a fully fledged company, complete with a modest office, a few early employees, and a vision to organize the world’s information.

Key milestones from that period include:

• 1996 – The BackRub research project launches.
• September 15, 1997 – google.com domain is registered.
• September 4, 1998 – Google Inc. is incorporated.
• 1999 – First round of venture capital funding arrives.

Since then, Google has expanded far beyond search, but the core story remains the same: two Stanford students turned a quirky research idea into the most used search engine on the planet. The September 27 rumor has no footing in any official document, and the real founding date—September 4, 1998—remains the date worth remembering.