Google celebrated its 20th birthday on Sept. 27 with a Doodle covering the most popular searches of the last two decades.
Questions like “What will happen on Y2K?”, “How do you tie a tie?” and “What’s the most popular sport in the world?” made up some of Google’s most common queries in its early years. People also asked how to dance, whether Pluto is still a planet and how autotune works, among several questions. In more recent years, people have wondered how to pronounce “GIF” and asked “What’s a selfie?” according to the Doodle.
Google has also included a feature under its main bar with a link to what people have searched for over the last 20 years. According to its insights, Ed Sheeran was the third most searched musical artist of 2017 and 2018, and Lindsay Lohan was the third most searched actor of 2004 and 2007.
“Twenty(ish) years ago, two Stanford Ph.D. students launched a new search engine with a bold mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” Google said in its description of the Doodle. “Though much has changed in the intervening years — including now offering Search in more than 150 languages and over 190 countries — Google is still dedicated to building products for everyone.”
