Google, the hugely popular internet site, is believed to be mulling a flotation which could value it at $15-25 billion and represent the first major dot.com IPO since the collapse of the technology bubble three years ago.

The internet search engine, which claims more than 73 million users a month, is reported to be considering a flotation early next year. A value of about $20bn would put the company's stock market value on a par with that of Amazon and Yahoo, the internet giants which floated in the late 1990s, the heyday of the dot.com boom. In the UK, companies of equivalent stockmarket value include BSkyB, National Grid Transco and Standard Chartered.

While Google has long been considered a likely flotation candidate the California-based company has remained sceptical over the benefits. Google still cherishes the dot.com business culture of the late 1990s, proclaiming "you can be serious without a suit", employing a former chef to the Grateful Dead rock group and equipping its office with roller hockey equipment and lava lamps.

A listing would reap a fortune for Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the Stanford University computer science students who founded the site five years ago, and the two venture capital houses which backed them.

Google achieves annual profits of about $150 million on the back of $500m of revenues, the Financial Times reported, adding that the IPO may be held through the form of an online auction.