Google keeps moving their birthday around, so what is the actual day that the internet search giant should be celebrating?

Today, the Google doodle on their homepage celebrates the fact that they are now turning the ripe old age of 17, a period in which the company has achieved a fair amount. 

The Doodle depicts an old school computer with a lava lamp and some other quintessentially '90s gear, and they accompanied it with a look back to their humble beginnings on their blog. 

Image: Google

As highlighted by The Telegraph, Google has celebrated its birthday on a number of different days in the month of September, including the 7th, 8th, 26th and 27th. So why the variation? 

A quick look back through the history of their doodles shows that they have celebrated a fair few birthdays on the 27th, but when they turned five they decided they would rather celebrate it on September 8th. The next year, they swapped that and chose to go for the 7th instead. When they turned seven, they jumped forward to September 26th, but then reverted to the 27th, which they had used for their fourth birthday. 

Well, it seems that the real day that they were incorporated as a company was September 4th, which should probably be the day they mark, but that's unclear too. For the first few years of their existence they claimed that the 7th was the day of incorporation, raising only further confusion in the search for an answer. 

That confusion has never really been fully explained, but it looks like September 27th is going to stick, at least for now. However with Google branching out into several different entities under the 'Alphabet' plan that they outlined earlier this year, it might get even more confusing when trying to pin down an actual date. 

Next year, just throw a few scratchcards in a card and send it off at the start of September, might as well be early with the birthday wishes.