The Independent's journalism is supported by our readers. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn commission.
Google celebrates 15th birthday with interactive piñata 'doodle'
Doodle challenges users to release as many virtual sweets as possible by thwacking a star-shaped piñata with a stick
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Google is celebrating its 15th birthday with an interactive doodle based on a Mexican piñata.
The doodle comes in the form of a basic video game that challenges the user to release as many virtual sweets as possible by thwacking a star-shaped piñata with a stick.
The doodle forms part of the celebration for Google’s 15th birthday, which has also seen the search engine create ‘Google in 1998’ – a fascinating look at how the website looked in its launch year.
Originally called BackRub and based in a Menlo Park garage, Google was founded by PHD students Larry Page and Sergey Brin as part of a research project.
It has since grown into the world’s most visited website, making its founders multi-billionaires.
The actual date of Google’s birthday has long been a topic of debate, with a number of analysts saying a more accurate birthday would be September 7 – the date the website may have been incorporated, or September 15 – the date the domain name Google.com is believed to have been first registered.
The reason for Google celebrating its birthday on 27 September appears to stem from an argument the search engine had with Yahoo in 2005 over their respective size and growth rate.
Following an announcement by Yahoo that it’s indexing was larger than Google’s, software engineer Anna Patterson hurriedly posted a message on the search engine’s blog revealing Google had subsequently expanded its own index by 1,000 times.
In the message she also announced, as part of a “birthday” overhaul, Google would be dropping the index counter from its frontpage.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments