Search “google in 1998” on Google and something wonderful happens: the results page transforms into the site’s actual 1998 design — primary-color logo with an exclamation mark, grey buttons, Times New Roman everywhere. It’s one of the few easter eggs that’s a genuine time machine. Our retro search box above recreates that 1998 feeling, wired to search this site’s own tricks.
What Google actually looked like in 1998
The original Stanford-era page was gloriously bare: a logo made in free graphics software, a single search box, two buttons, and a note about the index size (about 25 million pages then — versus hundreds of billions today). No ads, no doodles, no suggestions. The exclamation mark in the logo was a nod to Yahoo!, the giant of the day. The design’s emptiness wasn’t minimalist philosophy — co-founder Larry Page simply didn’t do HTML, and the speed it produced became a signature by accident.
How the easter egg works
The trick is a special results template: Google detects the exact query and serves the retro theme, complete with era-appropriate result styling and a “Take me back to the present” link. It launched in 2013 for Google’s 15th birthday and has survived every redesign since — a rare permanent easter egg.
More time travel
Pair it with the full easter egg collection, spin the modern page with a barrel roll, or mirror the whole internet at elgooG.
Does the google in 1998 easter egg still work?
Yes — search the exact phrase “google in 1998” on desktop Google and the retro results page appears. It’s been live since 2013.
Was that really the 1998 design?
Very close — the easter egg reproduces the era’s logo, colors and layout, including the Yahoo!-style exclamation mark Google used at the time.
Why was the original Google page so plain?
Speed and necessity: a bare page loaded fast on dial-up, and the founders weren’t designers. The simplicity later became deliberate brand identity.
Does the trick work on mobile?
It’s primarily a desktop experience — mobile results may show it partially or not at all depending on region and app.