THE world's most popular search engine is celebrating its 19th birthday and it is marking the milestone with a classic Google Doodle.

Before you give the search engine's birthday surprise spinner a go here's nine things you might not know about Google.

4 Credit: Google

4 The Google founders hatched their idea at uni Credit: Corbis

1. Building bricks of success

Back in the very beginning, Google’s storage facility was a load of hard drives in a container made of LEGO.

But don't panic, your precious files and pictures are saved on something much less basic today.

2. Baaaa-king mad

Google’s grounds have a lot of land – and company bosses keep it maintained by hiring goats.

Around 200 goats visit for a week at a time, to guzzle up the Google grass.

There are a lot of dogs too – with employees being encouraged to bring their own pets, because their pooches are thought to make people happier.

The history of Google Doodles, what they are and where they came from

4 The green and grassy grounds of Google... which are maintained by GOATS Credit: Corbis

3. Traffic jam

Back in 2013, Google crashed for five minutes – and took 40 per cent of web traffic with it.

Nowadays, Facebook challenges Googles power, by driving a lot of traffic through social media. So any future crashes would be much less drastic.

4. The surprising cost of I’m Feeling Lucky

This handy little button costs Google tens of millions of dollars every year – because it bypasses all the adverts which would normally show up on the results page.

They’re slowly getting round it. Have you noticed that suggestions pop up even as you start typing your first word?

5. There’s a T-Rex on the Google Campus

And it has a scary message for the company’s many employees.

The dinosaur skeleton is there to remind workers that even the most powerful things can go extinct, and not to let it happen to Google.

6. They don’t want you to ‘just Google it’

Bosses didn’t like their company's name becoming a verb.

The phrase ‘just Google it’ worried those high up in the company, who thought it could undermine all their hard work to establish a brand.

4 Google is thought to be a great place to work... with the company looking after employees even after they pass away Credit: Reuters

7. Quest to dominate

Experts reckon Google buy more than one company every week.

Most of them are tiny, and get folded into the already established branches of Google’s business.

But others, like Android, are much bigger – and continue to stand on their own within Google’s enormous empire.

8. They really value their employees

Google make sure they look after the families of those who die while still working for them.

Husbands and wives get 50 per cent of their dead partner’s salary for a whole decade.

While their kids receive money until they’re adults, too.

9. To infinity and beyond

One Google search uses more coding and computing power than it took to send the Apollo 11 astronauts to the moon.

And is significantly quicker than the rockets.