It all began in the summer of 1995, when Larry Page and Sergey Brin met at Stanford University (Brin showed Page around the school). The two students founded Google - named after googol, the term for 1 followed by 100 zeros - a year later in a suburban garage. It was incorporated on September 7 1998 - which became Google's birthday.
With millions using Google every day, it is regularly voted one of the world's top brands. Page and Brin have been described as the Thomas Edisons of the internet. But some worry that it has become a major threat to privacy. Google's tentacles are everywhere.
It runs services for blogging, email, instant messaging, shopping and social networking. It also offers a suite of word processing, spreadsheet and other tools to rival Microsoft's products in the workplace, and is building a software platform for mobile phones that may challenge Apple's iPhone and others.
This week Google launched Chrome, a new web browser, opening up another front in its battle with Microsoft.
Google was also accused of selling out and reneging on its "Don't be evil" motto when it launched in China in 2005. The company modified the version of its search engine in China to exclude controversial topics such as the Tiananmen Square massacre or the Falun Gong movement, provoking a backlash in its core western markets.
Its founders admitted last year that the decision to censor its search engine in China was bad for the company.
Timeline
1995
· Larry Page and Sergey Brin meet at Stanford University
1996
· Now computer-science students, Page and Brin begin collaborating on a search engine called BackRub, named for its ability to analyse website backlinks for relevance
· The first version of Google is released on the Stanford University website in August
1997:
· Google.com is registered
1998
· An unincorporated Google Inc receives its first investment: $100,000 (£56,000) from Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim
· Google sets up a workspace in a garage in Silicon Valley
· Google files for incorporation in California, granted on September 7 - now celebrated as Google's birthday
1999
· Google outgrows its garage office and moves to an office with eight employees
· The company gets $25m of venture capital and moves to Mountain View
2000
· The first 10 language versions of Google.com are released: French, German, Italian, Swedish, Finnish, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Norwegian and Danish
· Does a deal with Yahoo to become its default search provider
· Google becomes the world's largest search engine with the first billion-URL index
2001
· In its first public acquisition Google buys Deja.com's Usenet Discussion Service, an archive of 500m discussions dating back to 1995
· Eric Schmidt becomes chairman, then chief executive
· Page and Brin are appointed presidents of products and technology, respectively
2002
· Major partnership with AOL
· Google News launched, with 4,000 sources
2003
· American Dialect Society members vote "google" the most useful word of the year for 2002
· Acquires Pyra Labs, the creators of Blogger
2004
· Gmail launched
· Google goes public: IPO at $85 a share
· Partnerships announced with leading libraries and universities to digitally scan millions of books from their collections
2005
· Google Maps and Google Earth launched, a satellite imagery-based mapping service, followed by Google Talk
2006
· Google goes live in China
· Acquires video-sharing site YouTube
2007
· Street View in Google Maps debuts in five US cities
· Acquires DoubleClick, an online advertising company
2008
· New Yahoo partnership announced
· Real-time stock quotes go live on Google Finance for the first time
· Belgian newspapers push for up to €49m (£39.4m) in damages from Google for publishing and storing their content without paying or asking permission
· Surprise launch of new web browser Chrome in September