...Google logo (in 2001 they were actually already using a newer one) the input box invites you to search through 1,326,920,000 web pages. A search for Barack Obama returns around 773 results, for instance, with the top link leading to the old address as it was, and a special link pointing to the Wayback Machines archived version of it (today, over 60 million results are returned). A search for Gmail returns gmail.linuxpower.org, a Linux email client for the Gnome desktop. A search for BitTorrent returns 0 results.

Now, why isnt Google showing the index of 1998, considering its supposed to celebrate their 10th birthday? -F-or various technical reasons that are too boring to go into, Google states in their FAQ, earlier versions of our index arent readily accessible ... the January 2001 index is the best we can do. Googles FAQ also disclaims that the index shown is not exactly the one as it was in 2001, but that its a pretty good approximation. The FAQ adds that this special search engine wont be live forever, but just for one month.

Google 2001 is a highly interesting trip to the past. You can get a feeling for what the web** was like back then, what topics were as of yet unknown or little talked about, and " provided the ranking order is the exact same as it was in 2001, which Im not entirely sure about " you can also evaluate how well Google ranked results back then. Which insightful bits did you find?

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