Next month, Google can light up the candles on a birthday cake and celebrate 18 years since it formally became a business. Undoubtedly, though, Google will not just be celebrating its mere survival, but having become one of the world's biggest companies - thriving and achieving incredible commercial and technological success.

4 September marks the date the company opened a bank account and filed for incorporation in California. However, you may be surprised to hear that Google actually doesn’t know when its official birthday is, and the celebration date has varied each year.

On my 18th birthday, I was excited to head down to the tattoo parlour and get something I would end up regretting years later. I imagine for Larry Page and Sergey Brin (co-founders of Google) and Sundar Pichai (current CEO of Google), there won’t be much time spent putting their feet up and fondly looking back. Instead, they’ll spend the day continuing their relentless drive forward.

What has Google achieved in 18 years?

Remember AOL, Yahoo and even Ask Jeeves? When was the last time you turned around to your friend and said “let’s Yahoo it”? You’d be met with raised eyebrows and the younger generation replying “what?”

Stomping out all of its competitors is what Google has achieved with remarkable success; notwithstanding Baidu, which has successfully owned the Chinese search engine market since Google refused to modify its search engines for The Great Firewall.

Updates and new algorithms incorporating advanced machine learning mean that Google has continuously improved its search results, granting people what they search for in remarkably quick time. Holding the results that people want and handing them out so swiftly, it’s no wonder we rely on Google so much for our searching needs.

Google search: no one 'Ask Jeeves'' a question any more

Going beyond dominating the online search engine market, Google has began to branch out to other products and services. This lead to the birth of Alphabet, the new umbrella brand for all Google products and services. The fact that Google has created Alphabet indicates its desire to grow and inability to slow down.

What’s next for Google?

The new Google phone, which is set to be released before the end of the year, is anticipated to be a serious contender to Android handset makers. Google is tapping into the fact that consumers are now using smartphones more frequently than laptops. Focusing on mobile means Google will be emphasising its Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) and locally-focused search results.

There will still be challenges ahead, though. The desire to dominate the mobile phone market means Google will be competing even more with Apple. Another threat comes from Facebook, as the social media juggernaut continues its push into the realm of video streaming.

Not only is this creating direct competition with Google-owned YouTube, but there are many draws for advertisers to use Facebook advertising. The Facebook Ad platform is considered by many advertisers to be superior to AdWords. This means advertising spend is being moved to Facebook, leaving Google to get slightly warm under the collar.

Google's self-driving car. The company continues to broaden out from its search roots

What Google’s success means for digital marketing

Google pleases the people, so we, digital marketing companies, have to please Google. Businesses and marketing companies have loyally kept up to date with Google over the years in order for businesses to succeed.

However, it’s not easy having this relationship with Google. Every time an update occurs, my team and I go through the repercussions this has for our clients.  For example, Google recently changed search results to show four adverts at the top, while eliminating ads down the right-hand side.

This can have a dramatic effect on businesses who had become reliant on this service. Other businesses have watched as their hard work invested in SEO is nullified by algorithm updates. This overnight process wipes out their main source of business advertising.

While the fundamental principles we use to get websites ranked don’t change, the specific tactics do. Recently Google updated its policy around guest blogging and product reviews, and only time will tell whether this will have the impact that previous cute-sounding, animal-named updates have had.

One thing is for sure, though: businesses that make a living from Google need to stay up to date, and as Google adapts, so do we.

Google is the search engine that businesses know they need to be seen on. As Google pops its eighteenth birthday champagne bottle, myself and other digital marketers will need to be ready for whatever it has in store for the next eighteen years.