Google timeline, 1995–1999
From a Stanford doctoral project to a company with an office, investors and its first press release. In this period Google did not yet sell ads: the search engine grew by word of mouth, ran on improvised servers and earned money by licensing search. Records follow the order of the best-documented dates; where sources disagree, the record shows it.
1995
- Google Museum
Event › Search and discoveryPage and Brin meet at Stanford
1995 — In 1995 Sergey Brin, a Stanford PhD student, was one of the students assigned to show the campus to Larry Page, a prospective student from the University of Michigan.
1996
- Google Museum
Research project › Search and discoveryBackRub
1996 — Larry Page and Sergey Brin's Stanford research project that ranked pages by the web's link structure.
1997
- Google Museum
Event › Search and discoverygoogle.com domain registered
September 15, 1997 — The google.com domain was registered on September 15, 1997, while the search engine still ran at Stanford addresses.
1998
- Google Museum
Event › Company and acquisitionsCraig Silverstein, the first employee
1998 — Craig Silverstein, Page and Brin's fellow PhD student at Stanford, was the first employee hired by the new company in 1998.
- Google Museum
Visual identity › Identity and cultureThe 1998 logo, with an exclamation mark
1998 — The first logos were made by the founders themselves in the free GIMP image editor.
- Google Museum
Product or service › Search and discoveryGoogle Search in its beta years (1998–1999)
1998 — After leaving Stanford's addresses, the search engine moved to google.com under a beta label.
- Google Museum
Research paper › AI and researchThe Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine
April 1998 — Paper by Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page that presented Google as an academic prototype and described PageRank.
- Google Museum
Technology › Search and discoveryPageRank
April 1998 — A measure of a page's importance computed from the links it receives and from the importance of the pages citing it.
- Google Museum
Event › Company and acquisitionsAndy Bechtolsheim's US$100,000 check
August 1998 — In August 1998 Andy Bechtolsheim, a Sun Microsystems co-founder, wrote a US$100,000 check to Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
- Google Museum
Visual identity › Identity and cultureBurning Man, the first Doodle
August 30, 1998 — On August 30, 1998, before leaving for the Burning Man festival, Page and Brin placed the event's stick figure behind the second "o" of the logo.
- Google Museum
Event › Company and acquisitionsThe Menlo Park garage, Google's first office
September 1998 — After the August 1998 investment, the new company moved from Stanford dorms to the garage of a house in Menlo Park, California.
- Google Museum
Event › Company and acquisitionsGoogle Inc. is incorporated
September 4, 1998 — Google Inc.
- Google Museum
Event › Search and discoveryGoogle on PC Magazine's Top 100 list
December 1998 — In December 1998, a few months after incorporation, PC Magazine included Google in its list of the year's 100 best web sites and search engines.
1999
- Google Museum
Event › Advertising and businessRed Hat, the first commercial customer
1999 — In 1999, before AdWords existed, Google's business model was licensing its search technology to other sites.
- Google Museum
Event › Company and acquisitionsThe move to Palo Alto
February 1999 — In early 1999, with about eight employees and 500,000 searches a day, Google left the Menlo Park garage for 165 University Avenue in Palo Alto, a building known for housing other Silicon Valley startups.
- Google Museum
Visual identity › Identity and cultureRuth Kedar's logo (1999)
May 31, 1999 — In 1999 Page and Brin asked Ruth Kedar, then an art professor at Stanford, for a more professional logo.
- Google Museum
Event › Company and acquisitionsThe US$25 million round and the first press release
June 7, 1999 — On June 7, 1999, Google announced a US$25 million round led by Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins, with Michael Moritz and John Doerr joining the board.