It’s diverged quite a bit from the original:
<form method="GET" action="/search">
...
<center>
Search the web using Google!
<br>
<input type="text" name="query" value="" size="40">
<br>
<select name="num">
<option value="10" selected>10 results
<option value="30">30 results
<option value="100">100 results
</select>
<input type="submit" value="Google Search">
<input type="submit" name="sa" value="I'm feeling lucky">
<br>
<i>Index contains ~25 million pages (soon to be much bigger)</i>
</center>
...
</form>
https://web.archive.org/web/19981111183552/http://google.sta...
When did they change the "query" to q?
Saving bytes on the wire?
I guess maybe after the thousandth time they had to type it out.