Google is not quite 10 yet

Reports are circulating on the internets that Google is 10 years old tomorrow. Take, for example, this piece from Yahoo News, bearing the headline "Google, at age 10, is the official heart of the Internet" (man, it must sting Yahoo to stick that up!).

Great story, except it's not true. Tomorrow is indeed the 10th anniversary... of the day the domain "google.com" was registered. Prior to that, it was of course "google.stanford.edu", but it wasn't until September 7th 1998 that the company was incorporated. That's your official 10th anniversary right there - a Google spokesperson tells us to expect "big retrospectives" come that date next year.

Still, the idea of Google achieving its decade did set our hearts aflutter for a brief moment, and at least prompted us to look back to the first stories we ever published on the company. The very first Google mention on ZDNet.co.uk came courtesy of Rupert, who blogged in July 1999 that it was the best search engine to use when researching Salvia Divinorum.

Then, in September of that year, we wrote how "one of the Web's more unusual search engines" had just gone live after extensive beta testing. Ah, the days before perpetual beta...