Google celebrates 25th birthday with special doodle

"Today’s Doodle celebrates Google’s 25th year. And while here at Google we’re oriented towards the future,  birthdays can also be a time to reflect. Let’s take a walk down memory lane to learn how we were born 25 years ago," wrote Google on its doodle homepage.

"Much has changed since 1998 — including our logo as seen in today’s Doodle — but the mission has remained the same: to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Billions of people from all over the globe use Google to search, connect, work, play, and SO much more!" the company said.

The company thanked people for 'evolving' with the growth of the search engine over the years.

Google was officially launched in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin to market Google Search, which has become the most used web-based search engine.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin, students at Stanford University in California, developed a search algorithm at first known as "BackRub" in 1996, with the help of Scott Hassan and Alan Steremberg.

The search engine soon proved successful and the expanding company moved several times, finally settling at Mountain View in 2003.

This marked a phase of rapid growth, with the company making its initial public offering in 2004 and quickly becoming one of the world's largest media companies.