1 October 2008
Google as if its 2001
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In honour of Google’s tenth birthday and in recognition of how far search has come in the past few years, Google have teamed up with the Internet Archive to recreate Google as if it was 2001! The Official Google Blog announced:
Amazingly enough, hidden in a corner beneath Larry’s and Sergey’s original lab coats, we found a vintage search index in mint condition. We dusted it off and took it for a spin, gobsmacked to see how different the web was in early 2001…We had so much fun searching that we wanted to put this old index online for everyone to play with.
Quite amazingly, Google 2001 also lets you view the old versions of the websites that appear in the search engine results so you can see just how much things have changed since 2001.
Most interestingly, the Google Blog points out a few search results that have changed quite dramatically since 2001:
- ‘iPod‘ meant ‘Image Proof of Deposit Document Processing System’
- ‘YouTube‘ did not match ANY documents!
- ‘Facebook‘ still existed on Harvard’s domain
Post your favourite (or most bizarre) old searches in the comments!