Google's Past Homepage

kreativemind writes "I took a peek at WayBackMachine.com and found Google's first website. This was very interesting as I also discovered the founders (Larry & Sergey) eGroups board where they wrote about Google's startup site. Also found the "We Moved" site from Stanford."

Less evil

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't believe much less evil Google looked back then...

Re:Less evil

[eobanb]

Check out what slashdot looked like back then!! [slashdot.org]

Re:Less evil

[MoogMan]

http://web.archive.org/web/19971221012817/http://s lashdot.org/ [archive.org]

Well, it renders better in firefox ;)

Re:Less evil

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

Ironically, the lead article is about Internet Explorer being the most standards-compliant browser around.

It's like bizarro-Slashdot.

Re:Less evil

[KinkifyTheNation]

http://oldgoogle.com/ [oldgoogle.com]

Re:Less evil

[DJStealth]

Take a look at this one

Original Google.Stanford.edu with links to Sergey and Larry's home pages [archive.org]

Re:Less evil

[WhiteBandit]

Obviously, this is related to GGG-Gmail [ggg-gmail.com]?

Back then...

[datastalker]

...the site itself was Beta!

Good to see that they've not changed their processes... :)

Re:Back then...

[Slack3r78]

I think the most interesting thing about this is how similar the original page is to today's Google. Guess it goes to show they really hit on the right thing pretty early on as far as the site's interface goes.

Re:Back then...

[marshmeli]

I remember reading an article that the interface is so basic beccuase they didn't know hardly anything about HTML so they threw it together and they stuck with it. That article/interview was posted on here a while back I think.

Re:Back then...

[Xeo 024]

Exactly.

The prime reason the Google home page is so bare is due to the fact that the founders didn't know HTML and just wanted a quick interface.

- Source [blog-city.com]

Here [slashdot.org] is the /. article that links to that blog.

Re:Back then...

[MP3Chuck]

Have you looked at Google's source lately? They still don't know HTML. ;)

Re:Back then...

[tehshen]

They concentrated more on the back-end things than the interface at first, which is why the Google page looked so bad back then. After they'd done that, I suppose they just had to find some tutorials [google.com] :)

Re:Back then...

[hankwang]

I actually think the source is formatted as such to make it hard to read.

It's to save bandwidth. Pretty formatted HTML and javascript takes more bytes and that makes a difference with the number of pages that Google is serving.

Re:Back then...

[Mr. Underbridge]

I think the most interesting thing about this is how similar the original page is to today's Google. Guess it goes to show they really hit on the right thing pretty early on as far as the site's interface goes.

What, the notion that people using a search engine want a big search bar in the middle of the screen and not a bunch of clutter?

Revolutionary idea, that. Sad thing is I'm not being sarcastic.

... and?

[Leroy Brown]

... and?

Re:... and?

[St. Arbirix]

We're apparently recreating Slashdot in the form of a Google-fanclub.

Re:... and?

[Michael Hunt]

Congratulations.

You just described kuro5hin.

Linux Search

[MynockGuano]

Interesting to see that they had a "Linux Search" on their front page even then. Cool!

Re:Linux Search

[The-Bus]

Also, a lot of their links work. For example the "stickers" page now links to Google logos [google.com], where you can see their logos from early on. Some of them are less than... artful.

Craig Silverstein

[kevin_conaway]

Whatever happened to him? In the early days, he seemed to be a big part of the company and then he just sort of dropped off the face of the (Google) earth. Anyone know the story?

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Craig Silverstein

[STrinity]

He was beta-testing how the spiders handle robots.txt files and accidently made Google think he didn't exist. And now he doesn't.

You're right

[Neurotoxic666]

Seriously, you just made me realise something.

When you can't find something on Google, I mean REALLY CAN'T find it? After you've tried AGAIN 3-4 times with different words, will you really look elsewhere or just accept the fact that what you're looking for does not exist, because Google says so? I'm sure I'm not the only one doing the latter....

Google's first website

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

Damn thing is still in beta!

slashdotted

[uberjoe]

Think there's a google cache of this?

Not to be pedantic but....

[GillBates0]

It's spelt "Gandhi" and not "Ghandi" as many people tend to misspell it as.

Check out wikipedia or elsewhere if you need further proof. Like your overall sig though....took me a while to actually get it (I thought I'd got it the first time I saw it, but I hadn't till recently)

Wow, getting featured on the front page is easy

[vortigern00]

Gee, If I had known this was all you had to do to get credit for a posting on slashdot I'd have submitted this a year ago.

Re:Wow, getting featured on the front page is easy

[MyLongNickName]

I'm going to submit Google's CURRENT webpage.

Wanna take bets on whether it gets posted?

Nice

[Mr. Underbridge]

Wanna take bets on whether it gets posted?

No, that's not an interesting bet. The interesting bet is how many times it gets posted, and I'm putting the line at two dupes.

Interestingly enough...

[Nomihn0]

Interestingly enough, The WayBack Machine can can also be used to find when Slashdot last posted this story.

Re:Interestingly enough...

[mopslik]

The WayBack Machine can can also be used to find when Slashdot last posted this story.

Tomorrow?

News??

[pete19]

Bah... I saw that in 1998...

Does everything related to Google get on the frontpage now?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:News??

[klossner]

And I reported on a 12-hour period when Google was evilly trampolining all links through themselves to monitor our clicks. But fifty April Fools posts were more important.

Of course...

[youknowmewell]

Because Slashdot doesn't have enough Google stories as it is.

I've seen a lot of people complain

[A beautiful mind]

about how a story was news, and mostly i disagreed with their assessment, however, in this case, were someone to complain that how using archive.org is news, i'd agree with asking the question.

While we're talking about random browsing...

[GillBates0]

I took a peek at WayBackMachine.com and found Slashdot's pages since 1997. Did this way way back....but if somebody can get a story about it, the least I can hope for is a +5 Interesting.

1997 [archive.org]
1998 [archive.org]
1999 [archive.org]
2000 [archive.org]

Take a look once their server comes up.

(on a side note, Slashcode interprets embedded http://links/ [links] (as in : http://web.archive.org/web/20000301205131/http://w ww.slashdot.org/ [archive.org] incorrectly).

Re:While we're talking about random browsing...

[Anonymous Custard]

the correct way to do an embedded link is to use the ascii code for the colon (%3A) and the forward slash (%2F)

http://web.archive.org/web/20000301205131/http%3A % 2F%2Fw ww.slashdot.org%2F [archive.org]

And you can use the <URL:http://example.com/> method to get rid of one of the extra spaces (in the www):

http://web.archive.org/web/20000301205131/http%3A% 2F%2Fwww.slashdot.org%2F [archive.org]

Re:While we're talking about random browsing...

[Anonymous Custard]

consequently, archive.org does not seem to work with these standardly coded hyperlinks :-)

Re:While we're talking about random browsing...

[linebackn]

Actually, Slashdot started out as "Chips N Dips" at http://www.cs.hope.edu/~malda/cnd/ [hope.edu] (no longer at that URL obviously) I pulled this up in archive.org once but I can't seem to right now as archive.org search seems to be slashdotted.

Even earlier evidence of Google

[Anonymous Coward]

http://fury.com/images/weblog/google_circa_1960.jp g [fury.com]

Re:Even earlier evidence of Google

[l3v1]

:D hehe :D now this should've landed on the front page, not how Google looked 6-7 years ago, why ? well, because we still freakin' remember that's why

damn, tomorrow we will read about how the weather was yesterday

Re:Even earlier evidence of Google

[fbjon]

I.....

...I cannot hold back... anymore ...

... I ... I didn't use Google back then *sob* , please, have mercy on my soul!

I did not know of the God that would spring forth from the magnificent egg of Phoenix, I was not aware of the history in making!
I had never viewed the holy page before, and I have committed the ultimate sin.
My soul, I forever cast away in repentence!

... no, please, no... no, not my geek license, please don't take it! No, please spare me!

Oh my god .. NO! Don't take my Linux install c

Re:Even earlier evidence of Google

[seanadams.com]

Haha - except the amphitheatre didn't exist until 1986, much less Google headquarters on Amphitheatre Parkway.

I saw the past...

[CypherXero]

I saw slashdot at archive.org, and it reminded me of a time before it became "Googledot". I miss those days

server too busy

[digitaldc]

Network Error (tcp_error)
A communication error occurred: "" The Web Server may be down, too busy, or just doesn't care preventing it from responding to requests. You may wish to try again at a later time, or you can give up completely and go to msn search, it works better than google.
For assistance, contact your network support team, if you don't have a support team, hire one! They need jobs and they are fun to bring to tech conventions and have cool toys on their desks.

I can't believe it's just me...

[Myrmi]

I can't believe that it's just me, but this is really old news.

Mirrors

[sucker_muts]

Google's first websitehttp://mirrordot.org/stories/022b166f579c51 7f9aa710acad5f0953/index.html [mirrordot.org]
"We Moved"http://mirrordot.org/stories/0b37fdb012aef73 f90d560ad8dbc5d78/index.html [mirrordot.org]

This is news?

[nick8325]

Stop the presses! A Slashdot reader has discovered archive.org!

Google!

[Junior J. Junior III]

Seems like they've lost a little enthusiasm, and gained a little taste. Leave the !s to the Yahoos of the world.

Re:Google!

[shotgunefx]

My first thought! to. :)

I Still Remember

[rAiNsT0rm]

Typing google.stanford.edu to search, and how I couldn't convince anyone that it was better than Altavista.

Everyone thought "google" was a dumb name for the site, now it's a figure of speech

I just wish my search results were as good as they were in the wayback machine, now people prey on google's spidering and ranking so now I have to wade through the same detritus that I began using google to avoid.

Re:I Still Remember

[baadger]

Still there may be hope on the horizon [google.com].

"In fact generally we focus on the next generation of Google's crawling and indexing technology. We've got hard-core statisticians pondering how to measure search quality more accurately, and a slightly nutty project that we think might revolutionize the way that we organize and search structured information." ...and of course their aquisition of TrustRank [slashdot.org].

Yahoo/Google group irony

[ThyPiGuy]

I find if funny that google-friends was hosted as a Yahoo! Group first... then "moved to Google" as seen when you click the "archive" http://groups.yahoo.com/group/google-friends/ [yahoo.com] on the "We've moved" link.

Re:Yahoo/Google group irony

[emptybody]

I find if funny that google-friends was hosted as a Yahoo! Group first...

There isnt any irony there because It wasnt.

Yahoo bought E-GROUPS a few years ago, long after the google-friends group was created.

Re:Yahoo/Google group irony

[MushMouth]

Another "irony" is that e-groups started under a desk in Presidio Building 116, and now it only exists as e-groups from Presidio Building 116

Wooyay!

[88NoSoup4U88]

We slashdotted Google !

Yes,yes, it's the wayback-machine... But come on !

We slashdotted Google !

Re:Wooyay!

[jacksonj04]

Heh, I swear the world could go through nuclear war and the only things remaining would be Google and Duck Tape.

Re:Wooyay!

[88NoSoup4U88]

Always handy if you're one of the sole survivors, and looking for ways to ducktape cockroaches [google.co.uk] :)

Re:Wooyay!

[stinerman]

If you want to be super pedantic, there is a brand of duct tape called "Duck Tape" (or something similar). Also note he capitalized the words, thereby implying a proper noun.

Re:Wooyay!

[Rude Turnip]

"We slashdotted Google !"

Just think, ten years ago that would have sounded like meaningless drivel.

Ok, well maybe it still is.

Spoiler...

[rev0102]

[spoiler]

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<BASE HREF="http://www.google.com/">

<TITLE>Google!</ TITLE>
</HEAD>

<BODY bgcolor=#FFFFFF background=alpha.jpg>

<FORM method=GET action=/search>
<CENTER>
<IMG src=google.jpg width=351 height=113 alt=Google!>
</CENTER>

<CENTER>
<table border=0 width=90%>

<tr>
<td bgcolor=#EEEEEE colspan=3>
<CENTER>
Search the web using Google! <br>
<INPUT type=text name=q value="" size=40><BR>
<INPUT type=submit value="Google Search">
<INPUT type=submit name=sa value="I'm feeling lucky"><br>
</CENTER>
</FORM>
<FORM method=GET action=http://www.findmail.com/cgi-bin/subscribe.p y>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width=37% bgcolor=#7EE5DA><center>
Special Searches<br>

<A HREF="/stanford">Stanford Search</A><br>
<A HREF="/linux">Linux Search</A><br>
</center>
</td>
<td bgcolor=#70CCC2>
<CENTER>
<FONT size=-1>
<A HREF="help.html">Help!</A> <br>
<A HREF="about.html">About Google!</A> <br>
<A HREF="company.html">Company Info</A> <br>

<A HREF="stickers.html">Google! Logos</A> <br>
</FONT>
</CENTER>
</td>
<td align=right bgcolor=#62B3AA>
<CENTER>
<FONT size=-1>
Get Google! <br> updates monthly: <br>
<INPUT type=hidden name=listname value=google-friends>
<INPUT type=text name=emailaddr value="your e-mail"> <br>
<INPUT type=submit name=SubmitAction value="Subscribe">

&nbsp;&nbsp
<FONT SIZE=-1><A HREF="http://www.findmail.com/list/google-friends/ ">Archive</A></FONT>
</FONT>
</CENTER>
</td>

</table>
</CENTER>

<p>
<CENTER><FONT SIZE=-1>Copyright &copy;1998 Google Inc.</FONT></CENTER>
</FORM>

</BODY>
</HTML>

The Googles, They Do Nothing!

[WombatControl]

Wow, between the unquoted attributes, the tables, and the capitalized tags, that drives the Crazy Pedantic Web Standards Designer part of me up a bloody wall...

Re:The Googles, They Do Nothing!

[nathanm]

Wow, between the unquoted attributes, the tables, and the capitalized tags, that drives the Crazy Pedantic Web Standards Designer part of me up a bloody wall...

I still use HTML 4.01 Transitional to this day because I hate using all lowercase tags. They make it harder to quickly differentiate between content and markup without syntax highlighting.

Re:Spoiler...

[bugnuts]

Karma whore! :-)

Another important piece of Google history

[Peter Cooper]

Sergey Brin in drag [fpp.co.uk] during his Stanford days!

Okay, now I've just signed away my opportunity to work for Google, ever.

Re:Another important piece of Google history

[gmezero]

"Her knees are too sharp. She is waaayyy below my standards"

Holiday Logos of the past...

[DoubleDangerClub]

Did anyone see the Google archive?

http://www.google.com/holidaylogos99.html [google.com]

Holidays & other stuff..

[EvilStein]

Stupid "Burning Man" certainly isn't a holiday. Thank god. :)

Wow - Google was positively psychic back then

[Anonymous Coward]

I typed Google into the old Google search box and it found the new Google! Scary...

Not quite correct

[baadger]

"I took a peek at WayBackMachine.com and found Google's first website [archive.org]."

Technically this is incorrect, the first 'Google website' is archived under google.standford.edu [archive.org]. Although obviously he meant the first Google.com webpage, I thought i'd post it for the sake of enjoyment I get from being annoying.

Don't miss the pictures and stats of Google hardware [archive.org], or Sergey's [archive.org] and Larry's [archive.org] Stanford pages either for those who haven't seen it all before.

archive.org is slow

[dustinbarbour]

I've got an idea.. Since Google wants to be the company to index all of the world's information, why dont't they start their own archive service? Perhaps archive.google.com? I'm sure they could manage all of it and make it all a bit speedier. J00' Kn0w?!

And a million nerds...

[erkdaap]

...all check to see if the wayback archive has last years pictures cached from their favorite pr0n sites...

"Get Google" monthly updates?

[bugnuts]

I just entered my old email address and received 45 backdated emails.

What an accomplishment

[David Horn]

Brilliant. You slashdotted the past.

Fixed up pages:

[sH4RD]

Wow, I definately submitted this to Slashdot about a year ago. Ah well...thus is life.

Anywho, a (long) while back I created an improved (aka: all bugs fixed) version of the archive, with a few complete versions of the site. Check it out here: backrub.tjtech.org [tjtech.org]. It even has an archive of the original BackRub page! Classic!

Other travel in time machine

[gbitten]

What about the first /. post about Google:

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=98/08/06/134520 2&tid=95 [slashdot.org]

Re:Um...

[Reignking]

a) it uses the word Google
b) to annoy the hell out of us
c) slow news day
d) A & B

If you chose D, you win!

Gratuitious Slashdotting

[ari_j]

No, it's on the front page for the sole purpose of Slashdotting archive.org. It's not even funny, anymore, it's just disgusting how shitty Slashdot is about what they choose to post and how they choose to post it. I come here for posterity - who are the dumbasses who pay for this abuse?

Re:Gratuitious Slashdotting

[ari_j]

That's bullshit, and you know it. Slashdot has plenty of cash flow and, given how long it takes them to get a story to the front page, it's just idiotic to think that they don't have time to actually read the shit they put up and check it for spelling, grammar, sensationalism, and duplication.

Re:Um...

[PxM]

They hope to increase their pagerank by sucking up to Google?

Re:Um...

[XorNand]

Stuff like this, along with the increasing number of paid-for, astroturfing articles, is the reason I don't have a little asterisk next to my name.

Re:Um...

[NanoGator]

"Wow? Why is this on the front page?"

For the same reason that Mozilla used to get front page whenever a minor update was made to it. It involved offering reach-arounds, but I won't name names for fear of mod-retaliation.

Re:news?

[bluekanoodle]

Looks like somebody /.'ed the wayback machine!

Great! Now my entire afternoon of mindless browsing is shot to hell!

Re:news?

[Anonymous Coward]

But if the Wayback Machine is slashdotted, does that mean the past has ceased to exist? Am I going to start fading from photographs?

Oh, no! If Marge marries Artie, I'll never be born!

Re:How is this news?

[John Seminal]

I usually dont complain about the news coverage here but what's the point of this? We all know how Google looked back in 1998, either because we used the site back then or because everyone and his grandmother know about archive.org and google is probably one of the first things you try when visiting that site.

I never saw the original Google, and it looks kinda funny. LOL. How did that turn into a multi million dollar company? Seriously. That original page looks worse than what a 5th grader can program i

Re:How is this news?

[AKAImBatman]

How did that turn into a multi million dollar company? Seriously. That original page looks worse than what a 5th grader can program in HTML.

They hired an artist. Seriously. ;-)

If there's one thing I've noticed as a programmer, it's that good programmers are rarely good artists. Sure, they know all the GIMP or Photoshop tricks, but they just don't have the sense of style. The result is that everything tends to come out utilitarian.

I wish I would have made *something* and cashed in.

You still can. The t

Re:How is this news?

[John Seminal]

I wish I would have made *something* and cashed in.

You still can. The trick is that your idea can't be as stupid as the DotCom ideas. VCs realized that a *business plan* might be a good idea. That being said, I hate the funding part. I'd love to hook up with a guy who's good at the "getting the funding" side of things, while I focus on the "producing a product" side of things. Doing both alone is stressful, and often yeilds poor results. No wonder 90% of businesses fail. :-)

I have many great idea'

Re:How is this news?

[AKAImBatman]

I have so many ideas. I just need the bandwith.

Okkaaayyy... Why is bandwidth the problem? These guys [lunarpages.com] can fix you up with everything you need at a low cost. Besides, if your ideas were sufficient to warrant VC attention, then you could get money from them for a T1.

Re:How is this news?

[John Seminal]

Okkaaayyy... Why is bandwidth the problem? These guys [lunarpages.com] can fix you up with everything you need at a low cost. Besides, if your ideas were sufficient to warrant VC attention, then you could get money from them for a T1.

The ideas I have would not interest VC until I had the buisness up and running. There are just too many people out there begging for money. Plus, the sooner you ask for VC funding, the more of the company they want. If you have established a buisness making money, and then y

Re:How is this news?

[AKAImBatman]

I wish there was something in between a $70 DSL and a $1000+ t1 line. Too bad there is not a $200 DSL package that guarenteed 750k/second upstream, like splitting a t1 line.

I've heard of full T1's at about $500/month, and fractional T1's for far less. Talk to your local providers and see who can give you the best deal. The setup will still cost you though.

Hey, is it possible to buy 2 DSL lines and double the bandwith?

Just go for a business class connection. Most phone companies have symetrical busines

Re:How is this news?

[golgotha007]

just slap a webserver on each DSL line and have them share a share a single database, or use a single server with two network interfaces or just use a single interface with an alias.

Then, direct traffic to both of these webservers (or network interfaces) simultaneously with round-robin DNS.

Just add the two A records for a single host.
www 60 IN A 208.201.239.36
www 60 IN A 208.201.239.37

Be sure to set the TTL low enough (about 60 seconds) to prevent any intervening caching DNS serve

Re:How is this news?

[Anonymous Luddite]

>> I wish there was something in between a $70 DSL and a $1000+ t1 line. Too bad there is not a $200 DSL package that guarenteed 750k/second upstream, like splitting a t1 line.

You musn't have looked too hard. - There are plenty of business plans available in my jurisdiction with QOS agreements and they are much less than $1000.

Having said that, why would you not rent a server/buy hosting? It's cost effective to let someone else worry about the hardware and software while you worry about your bus

Re:How is this news?

[Fwonkas]

How did that turn into a multi million dollar company? Seriously. That original page looks worse than what a 5th grader can program in HTML.

I'm guessing that they offered some sort of service or something that sort of made up for their basic HTML.

Re:How is this news?

[rainman_bc]

I used yahoo back then for my searches.

I still would be if it wasn't for the X10 popups. I converted to Google because I got really, really annoyed.

I'd switch to something else now if it wasn't for google groups. IMO that's what keeps us nerds using it. I'd switch in a heartbeat to a google clone that had groups, and found a way to get past the keyword-spammers.

Re:How is this news?

[ramblin billy]

There are a couple of reasons why google is news and in a way, will be always. The first is the rise of a company from literally nothing to a multiBILLION dollar business in less than 10 years. That's incredible. Even more incredible is that not only have most of the people using Google's service never paid a dime, they have never been asked to. A good argument could be made that google has delivered more value to more people at less cost to them than any organization in history. That includes governments

Re:hhmm....

[hey]

The syntax of your post clearly indicates are you programming in some very odd language...

neither { news() nor matters() }

Re:hhmm....

[Anonymous Coward]

The way back machine is always slow. Time travel takes a lot of CPU cycles you know.

Re:Larry and WHO?

[nick8325]

No, it's not.

http://www.google.com/corporate/execs.html [google.com]