Summary:Every white swan was probably once an ugly duckling. Before Google became a tech giant, it also had its awkward startup period. In 1996, Google was just a research project called BackRub, led by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin. In 1998, Google was officially founded as a privately held company in Mountain View, California, USA, designing and managing an internet search engine.

The test page back then featured a link: "Google Search Engine — sometimes it might actually work".

After clicking in, it looked like this:

1999 was a remarkable year for Google. After April (specifically after April 22), the website evolved into this form.

Then on October 12, the website finally removed the Beta label and officially launched. (Those with OCD would find it unbearable.)

In 2000, the website's style was revamped again, and the logo returned to the center of the page. The main functions remained unchanged, retaining "Google Search" and "I'm Feeling Lucky", and adding a count of indexed web pages.

Two years later, Google added a navigation bar, including "Web", "Images", "Dictionary", and "News", etc.

By February 2005, the interface became even more streamlined, and the tabs were greatly enriched, with the number of indexed web pages reaching an astonishing 8 billion. However, in 2008, Google removed the navigation bar to further simplify the interface. But this made it more inconvenient for users who were accustomed to searching by content type. If users wanted to search for a specific type of content, they had to type keywords first before selecting a category, which was undoubtedly more troublesome. During this period, Google's business was flourishing in many areas, including AdWords, Google Maps, Google News, Google Analytics, and even an email service. (Image shows the 2008 web interface.)

By 2011, the biggest change to Google's interface was the logo. Another redesign in 2013 made the logo icon even more beautiful. (Image shows the 2013 web interface.)

Then, Google became the Google we see today. Not only was the logo designed more elegantly, but the search box also kept only the voice search option, achieving the ultimate simplicity. Twenty years have passed quickly indeed. The successive redesigns of the webpage also witness the growth of the company.