The IPO would give it the cash needed to take on fiercely competitive rivals Yahoo! and Microsoft in the battle for the lucrative search engine market.
An IPO is expected to value the six-year-old Google at around $20bn (拢11.24bn). Google is making no comment but sources quoted by The Wall Street Journal said that the firm would "push forward with an initial public offering".
It reported that Credit Suisse First Boston and Morgan Stanley will lead the public offering, identifying the two securities firms as the ones chosen for the job, which is likely to generate fees of as much as $100m.
News on the IPO front comes as Google faces more legal trouble. This time not over the launch of its free email system Gmail, but rather over its lucrative advertising business.
French insurance giant AXA is taking Google to court over allegations that the search firm sold on AXA trademarks as search terms under its Adwords scheme to trigger the names of rivals appearing.
The case comes on top of an existing one launched by American Blind and Wallpaper Factory, over trademarks. The firm says it owns terms such as "American blinds", which Google says are generic.
Nothing is certain, however, and could remain a private company and instead raise further capital privately rather than going to the market.
Google has never confirmed any of the reports about an initial public offering but neither has it reined in widespread predictions of a partial flotation.
However, in January Google chairman and chief executive Eric Schmidt said: "An IPO is not on my agenda right now." He was reported to have made the comments at private meetings with business leaders.
Wall Street will get a hint of Google's potential later this week when the Mountain View, California-based firm, is forced to open up its books under US regulatory laws.
Under US securities law, private companies are forced to disclose detailed financial information on a quarterly basis after they reach a certain size. Analysts believe that Google passed that mark some time last year.
Some analysts are expecting that when Google does file its accounts it will go a step further and announce its much-talked-about IPO.
An IPO would make the founders of the firm, Stanford University graduates Sergey Brin and Larry Page, extremely wealthy. The two still hold 30% of the firm.
It would also enrich staff, with around 1,000 eligible for shares, and investors such as venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital.
Talk of the IPO was sparked in October last year when Google executives were reported to have contacted more than a dozen investment banks about a possible IPO, before cutting the list of banks to around six.
At the time it was speculated that that shares in Google will be auctioned off after executives at the search firm were said to have told bankers that they wanted to offer shares as broadly as possible in an effort to acknowledge the millions of users who have turned Google into the success it is.
If the float does go ahead it would be the first of any note since the market crashed after the dotcom bubble burst three years ago.
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