Happy New Year: Google rings in 2014 with animated Doodle

Search giant rings in the New Year with dancing cartoon of numbers

Google has bid farewell to 2013 with an animated Doodle on its search page.

The colourful animation features caricatures of the dancing numbers 2, 0, 1 and 3 above a flashing dancefloor, while the number 4, stands to their right in the dark anticipating its time to shine. At midnight, the number 4 switched places with the number 3 to mark the start of 2014.

Above the dancefloor are pounding speakers and a twirling glitter ball replacing the second O in the Google title.

The final Google Doodle of 2013 came after a year of other animations and interactive games used by the search giant to mark anniversaries and other events.

A link below the search box takes the user to an interactive version of Google's Zeitgeist 2013, which gives highlights of the year in terms of major events and the terms that people were most searching for.

Aside from recent Christmas and Boxing Day Doodles, 2013 saw Google dedicate its home page to the biggest names in science and culture, with the likes of Léon Foucault, Friedrich Nietzsche and Maria Callas all having their birthdays commemorated. In September, Google even celebrated its own birthday with an interactive game of Mexican piñata.