On today's date in 1998, a little company named Google was formally incorporated. It was the nascent, literal garage effort of two Stanford grads as they worked on a search engine for the ol' World Wide Web. Twenty years later, Google is the third most valuable brand in the world — by at least one metric — and Android Police's raison d'être.

They grow up so fast, don't they?

Google's celebrating its birthday with a decidedly low-key doodle, showing off how Search has changed since things got started and providing a handful of fun examples of the more popular and humorous searches over the years. Going with it is a new 20 years of Google site that shows interesting details about how search trends have changed since 1998.

The nostalgic can also browse a Twitter moment celebrating Google doodles past, or find their Tuva in a discussion about Feynman, lost countries, and how easy kids have it with search engines these days. There's even a slightly abused, Googly Dr. Seuss adaptation exploring some of the better Search Easter eggs.

In more real feels, Google is also celebrating the positive impact its various services and products have had over the years. We think of things like Google Earth and YouTube as being curiosities or entertainment, but they've changed people's lives in tremendous and unexpected ways.

It's strange to think that the company that brought us Android (post-acquisition, anyway) has spent around half its life without the product we know and love. Search has always been Google's bread and butter, but in comparison to Gmail and Maps, Android and Chrome are still experiments.

Here's to 10 more years of Android, and 20 more years of Google.

Source: Google