Technically true but misleading. translate.google.com was launched in beta in 2001. But it took until 2005ish to convince Larry and Sergey that "Google Translate" was a better name than "translate.google.com". They had a lot of strong ideas about branding but never did think of a better name. Source: I wrote translate.google.com starting in 2000. Sergey told me it would take "a couple months" when I was hired. Also the Wayback machine shows a version from August 2002 so you don't have to trust a rando on the internet. I entirely agree that it wasn't any good until I handed it off to people who actually knew what they were doing.

Wow, I'd love to read your stories from that time, writing Google Translate from the ground.