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Time to feel old — Google.com was first registered 20 years ago today

Quite a few things happened in 1997. Titanic won 11 Oscars, WebMD went online for the first time, The Spice Girls had a number one hit, and yours truly was born. However, bigger than all of these things, the domain “Google.com” was officially registered.

The domain was registered exactly 20 years ago today on September 15, 1997, and it was last updated on September 9, 2017. Google.com is currently registered with MarkMonitor Inc., and it was done so at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View CA — otherwise known as part of the Googleplex.

Although the Google.com domain was registered in 1997, the site didn’t actually go live until 1998 — more specifically, September 4, 1998. Google Search has gained a lot of new features since it first launched (obviously), but at its core, it still does the same thing. You type in something you want to search the Internet for, and you get a heap of results.

However, just like the ever-changing feature set, the overall look of Google has also evolved over the years. Check out the photos below to see what we mean.

Although today is a fun one to reflect on for nostalgia’s sake, there’s a lot more to look forward to in just less than a month. Google will be holding an event on October 4 to announce its second-generation Pixel phones, and alongside these, we’re also expecting to see the first ever headphones with the Google Assistant built directly into them. Not to mention the imminent release of Google Lens, YouTube TV’s constant expansion, and so much more, it’s sometimes hard to believe all of this started with a simple search engine.

Happy Domain-inversary, Google!


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Avatar for Joe Maring Joe Maring

Joe has been a writer and occasional video producer for 9to5Google since July 2017. Follow him on Twitter @JoeMaring1 and send all emails to joe@9to5mac.com.


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