Google's birthday is When ?

Google is celebrating its 17th birthday with a commemorative Doodle harking back to the web of the 1990s.

The image, featuring a retro, plastic PC, lava lamp and even 1998's "Google!" Logo, features on Google's homepage on September 27, which the internet giant has retroactively chosen as its birthday.

However, not even Google seems to really know when it was formed. Since 2006, it has celebrated its birthday on September 27, but the year before that, had it as September 26.

In 2004, its 6th birthday Doodle went online on September 7 and in the year before that, it was September 8.

In fact, none of these dates seem to have any particular relevance. The company's history has its incorporation date in 1998 - the nearest thing to a corporate birthday - as September 4.

Google alluded to this confusion in 2013, admitting it had celebrated its birthday on four different dates, but September 27 now seems to have stuck. The company may have just chosen the date because it was whatthe first birthday Doodle in 2002 used.

The 17th birthday Google will appear in almost every country in the world,according to the Doodle blog, with the USA one big exception.

However, this may well change next year, as Google splits itself up into a group of companies all under the umbrella company "Alphabet"

The move will see the company's main money spinners such as search and Android remain part of a company called Google, but parts of the company such as its research division X and life sciences business will be separately incorporated.

This year's Doodle comes after the company changed its famous logo to a more rounded design.

Google has celebrated its birthday with a Doodle every year since its fourth birthday in 2002. However, the first Doodle, for the Burning Man festival in 1998, actually occurred before the company was technically founded.