Google, Circa 2001 355
An anonymous reader writes "If you have 10 minutes to spare, take a look at an archive that Google has posted to mark the company's 10th anniversary. The search engine and its results are based on data from 2001, but it's interesting to see what turns up when popular 2008 terms are entered. For instance, iPod generates a reference to Image Proof of Deposit Document Processing System, and the 771 Barack Obama results centered around his duties as an Illinois State Senator."
This is fucking cool (Score:4, Insightful)
Try searching for 'sarah palin' or 'conspiracy theory' for a few minutes of fun
Now you'll see why snapshots are good :)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:This is fucking cool (Score:5, Funny)
Awesome: "It was so Wasilla." Sarah Palin, Wasilla mayor, after officiating at a wedding at the local Wal-Mart store.
http://web.archive.org/web/20010306214613/www.alaskamagazine.com/stories/120199/ktob.html [archive.org]
Re:This is fucking cool (Score:5, Funny)
Can you imagine her taking a state visit to Germany?
Reporter: How would you describe this state visit?
Palin: It was so Germany.
[Reporters in the room all scribling]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Even better: "I am so sorry I'm such a weasel," she said.
http://web.archive.org/web/20010208163524/www.adn.com/elex/story/0,3109,204160,00.html [archive.org]
Re:This is fucking cool (Score:5, Insightful)
This is odd, though:
http://www.google.com/search2001/search?q=%22Sarah+Palin%22 [google.com] ("Sarah Palin") returns no results for me, but http://www.google.com/search2001/search?q=palin+Wasilla [google.com] (palin Wasilla) returns quite a few, including many with the term "Sarah Palin" in them.
Any thoughts?
Re:This is fucking cool (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This is fucking cool (Score:5, Insightful)
("Sarah Palin") returns no results for me, but (palin Wasilla) returns quite a few, including many with the term "Sarah Palin" in them. Any thoughts?
Yeah, I know exactly why this would be the case. Their search algorithm sucked back then (relative to now)... despite the fact that it was miles better than anything else.
:)
Remember when using alta vista, webcrawler, etc and EVERYTHING was a Boolean search (usually of way too many 'NOT's.
How we forget so quickly
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If it's illegal to stop abortion, why stop at that? I mean, all you're _really_ saying by making abortion is that, if someone or something is dependent on you to survive, you must ensure that it does. So that homeless guy out on the street? Yea. You have to give him your money. Because you know, otherwise he might die, and that's murder. And hell, if someone throws a grenade, you're legally required to jump on top of it if there are other people around, right?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
What would you say about abortion in cases of rape and such? In that case, the baby isn't really there as a result of your actions either. I suppose you're still the one choosing to kill it, but...well, we'll use the homeless guy analogy again - it's like if you come home one day to see a homeless guy has moved in. If you kick him out, he may die. But you never gave him permission to be there in the first place.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Following your line of thought, the unborn baby should ask for permission before a turning a woman pregnant, otherwise she's entitled to kick him out?
I'm still new to all that woman => magic => pregnancy => babies sequence, so cut me some slack...
Weird! (Score:2)
Re:Weird! (Score:5, Funny)
She only took on her human form around 2003.
I, for one, fear our ancient reptilian overlords!
Re: (Score:2)
The only result I found was about how Sarah Palin was approached by hippies to try to get weed legalized (for both smoking and industrial use):
http://web.archive.org/web/20010208164916/www.adn.com/elex/story/0,3109,207133,00.html [archive.org]
The group had driven to Wasilla on hemp oil.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Did the exhaust vent directly into the campervan? In which case, I sure hope they factored in the environmental cost of growing 68,000 lbs of doritos for the 18 month trip.
Your search - lolcats - did not match any document (Score:5, Funny)
PLEASE TAKE ME BACK TO TEH FUTURE!!!!111
A world without LOLCATS is a world I don't want to live in!
Re:Your search - lolcats - did not match any docum (Score:4, Funny)
Keep in mind that it's also a world without /b/tards.
I'm just sayin'...
Re:Your search - lolcats - did not match any docum (Score:4, Funny)
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But there was a lot of the 90's MIDI-playing pages and flashing colors.
You obviously haven't accidentally clicked on a myspace page recently...
Re: (Score:2)
Don't worry, http://www.google.com/search2001/search?hl=en&q=goatse&btnG=Google+Search [google.com]
Re:Your search - lolcats - did not match any docum (Score:5, Interesting)
but plagiarism
Results 1 - 10 of about 35,400 for bit torrent. (0.01 seconds)
and piracy were so much harder back then:
Now: Results 1 - 10 of about 264,000,000 for wikipedia. (0.27 seconds)
Results 1 - 10 of about 67,500,000 for bit torrent. (0.07 seconds)
Re:Your search - lolcats - did not match any docum (Score:5, Funny)
It wasn't, it just happened on FTP servers and USENET.
I'd tell you more but I have to to change my dentures.
Re:Your search - lolcats - did not match any docum (Score:4, Funny)
Before LOLCATS...
When no one yet knew NOM NOM NOM...
It was the first golden age of internet memes [google.com].
2001 called and wants its search engine back. (Score:2, Funny)
Sorry, couldn't help myself. Oblig.
Nice to see what's missing (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Nice to see what's missing (Score:5, Interesting)
Try al qaeda iraq [google.com].
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
others that came on the top of my head:
katrina [google.com] was Katrina Leskanich
gmail [google.com] was "a linux (unix) email client for the Gnome desktop."
Re:Nice to see what's missing (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting, from #2:
"In addition, al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq."
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not evidence, it's an indictment from the US government. It's on the same level as Colin Powell giving his PowerPoint presentation to the UN and holding up a vial of white powder. The evidence they thought they had to support the allegation is not detailed, but presumably it came from Iraqi defectors like most of the pre-war intelligence. We know now that there were significant caveats to that intelligence which were ignored.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't worry, there were still plenty of information about reptiallian aliens. [archive.org]
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Re:Nice to see what's missing (Score:4, Informative)
To be fair, that is from a grand jury indictment, and a statement in an indictment isn't necessarily a proven fact. That it got past the grand jury suggests little more than that the grand jury believed the chances of it were high enough to turn over to trial; without transcripts, there's no way of knowing how strong their belief may have been.
Re:Nice to see what's missing (Score:5, Funny)
I searched for 9/11 and it gave me 0.818181818181818
Re:Nice to see what's missing (Score:5, Interesting)
The most striking to me is Blackwater. Notice that back then Blackwater [google.com] was basically just a huge gun range and training center for law enforcement and citizens. They really took advantage of the "growth opportunities" provided by 9/11.
Re: (Score:2)
Subtle political trolling (Score:4, Funny)
The submitted article contains a subtle dig at Barack Obama, implying that he is unsuitable for the executive office because a primitive version of Google's PageRank algorithm only had 771 results.
I wonder how many results that same algorithm had for Theodore Roosevelt, 7 years before he became President? Few predicted his meteoric rise!
Re: (Score:2)
No I think you are completely wrong on this one.
Re:Subtle political trolling (Score:5, Funny)
I don't know. Maybe Google will release their search results from 1898 as well? Then we could google "World War" and go- huh huh huh- no pages found! Life was so much simpler then without all this "Nazi this, Nazi that" being shoved down our throats by the media...
Re:Subtle political trolling (Score:5, Funny)
You jest, but this is again appropriately hilarious:
http://fury.com/google-circa-1960.php [fury.com]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It isn't a dig against Obama. It merely contrasts how the results back then are completely different from today's results. How is that slandering him?
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Oversensitive much?
The same is true on many (most?) Presidential candidates. Just to take a few examples from the last few decades...
Random searches (Score:3, Interesting)
search term: (old) now
linux: (18,600,000) 558,000,000
microsoft: (15,700,000) 903,000,000
microsoft problems: (13,200,000) 500,000,000
linux problems: (15,400,000) 300,000,000
ubuntu linux: (20) 8,280,000
vista microsoft: (90,900) 20,800,000
vista microsoft problems: (0) 1,550,000
xp microsoft problems: (9,440) 11,900,000
Re: (Score:2)
linux desktop viable (17,800) 196,000
Perhaps the best part is the top link in 2001 was arguing why the linux desktop is a good option.. and the top link today is why it has failed.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Random searches (Score:5, Interesting)
nothing (16,500,000) 750,000,000
cotton candy (100,000) 5,520,000
This just in: The Internet is a lot bigger now than it was in 2001. Shocking, I know. However, the most important search result, the one that shows you how truly wonderful the world is now compared to the world of 2008:
porn (4,490,000) 236,000,000
Re: (Score:2)
compared to the world of 2008:
Er...make that compared to the world of 2001.
I'm a dumbass (34,600) 3,080,000
Re:Random searches (Score:5, Funny)
The Internet is a lot bigger now than it was in 2001.
Or not:
"penis enlargement": (107,000) 7,410,000
Re:Random searches (Score:5, Funny)
Wait... when is now, then?
For its 20th anniversary, Google brought back its index of 2008 for people to play with. Only this time there was the unexpected side effect that people could not only see the pages, but also post back from 2018.
Little did Google know that this breach of space-time would signify the collapse of the Universe by 2020.
PS, I'm posting this from an alternate Universe. I hope this doesn't mess th
Re:Random searches (Score:4, Insightful)
Napster: (1,130,000) 17.300.000
Millenium: (1,170,000) 23,900,000
Kursk: (98,300) 3,040,000
I guess 3 factors play a role: Google has better spiders, the net is growing and we have more redundancy.
One thing I haven't figured out yet: Have they filtered results which the current version does not display anymore for legal reasons?
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I am amazed that currently google only shows 654,000 hits for vote fraud, and 201,000 back then.
Re:Random searches (Score:5, Funny)
Oh and I found one:
y2k bug : (281,000) 274,000
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
well, not in English, but here it is: "cze do szwecji" [google.com] had 2 results in 2001 and 1 in 2008 :-)
Please contact me on gold star transfer :)
Re: (Score:2)
Ubuntu in 2001? VIsta in 2001?
How odd.
Ugh (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, and while we're at it, that's my lawn you're standing on.
wow...some growth (Score:4, Interesting)
Entering the keywords "porn" into it in 2001 [google.com] generates 4,490,000 hits vs 236,000,000 hits in
2008 [google.com]
Re:wow...some growth (Score:5, Funny)
slashdot growth is even more (Score:2)
814,000 in 2001 [google.com]
87,000,000 in 2008 [google.com]
Re: (Score:2)
"Now that VA Linux owns Slashdot, the days of open-source community love are
numbered."
How wrong can a quote be. Thanks Google for unmasking yet another doomsday quote.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Entering the keywords "porn" into it in 2001 [google.com] generates 4,490,000 hits vs 236,000,000 hits in
2008 [google.com]
We are much more highly sexed now then we were back then.
The good old days (Score:4, Interesting)
"Windows Vista" (Score:2)
Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac HOLY CRAP (Score:5, Interesting)
Search for: "fannie mae" "freddie mac" collapse
Hit up the archive of the first link. It's Fred L. Smith, Jr.'s testimony before the House Banking Committee's Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Securities, and Government Sponsored Enterprises.
He warns that the current setup of those two lenders are working to destabilize the marketplace.
From his testimony: "At best, this mixing of private and political incentives creates marketplace confusion; at worst, it leads to a serious misallocation of capital and an increasing risk for American taxpayers."
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Well there where articles about the lowering of the credit requirements causing problems going back to 1999.
Re:Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac HOLY CRAP (Score:5, Interesting)
Search for: "fannie mae" "freddie mac" collapse
Hit up the archive of the first link. It's Fred L. Smith, Jr.'s testimony before the House Banking Committee's Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Securities, and Government Sponsored Enterprises.
He warns that the current setup of those two lenders are working to destabilize the marketplace.
From his testimony: "At best, this mixing of private and political incentives creates marketplace confusion; at worst, it leads to a serious misallocation of capital and an increasing risk for American taxpayers."
From "http://web.archive.org/web/20010410165029/www.cagw.org/mediacenter/newsrel/search/00-03-09.htm"
"If Freddie and Fannie continue their attempts to expand their reach into subprime and jumbo mortgages, there is a real danger of collapse."
I will wait (Score:2)
for history to look back twenty years to finally pin the blame on the people who really caused this mess.
Unfortunately we aren't being told who interfered because its not newsworthy when it doesn't support your cause. Such is the press in the current election cycle.
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Several people said from the beginning it was a bad idea, so no real surprise here.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As they say, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
You can also find in books from the 1970's dire predictions that by the year 2000 the world will have been all but destroyed by: running out of oil, running out of food, running out of $SOME_OTHER_RESOURCE, overpopulation, nuclear war, the Rapture, etc.. etc.. All of which are notable of course for not having happened.
None of the top 5 results for (Score:2)
Nice! (Score:4, Funny)
Your search - "department of homeland security" - did not match any documents.
Oh make it so again magic eight ball!
(me cries)
Lame! I submitted this earlier! (Score:3, Funny)
Search Google
teamhasnoi writes "Put some words in the box here [google.com] and watch how results for your search come up. Awesome!"
The old one was more polite. (Score:2, Funny)
In today's world, "Britany Spears" comes up with "Did you mean: britney spears?"
I get enough sass IRL, thanks a bunch.
iPhone (Score:2)
vocaltec is the number one hit. Wow.
Try searching for subprime mortgage (Score:2)
...you get results like:
"Predatory Mortgage Lending Campaign -- ..."
CRC Predatory mortgage lending is a subset of the subprime mortgage industry.
Subprime mortgages are loans that have high interest rates and fees that are made
Too bad no one paid attention.
Wii (Score:2)
Wikipedia -- 42143900% Increase in Results! (Score:3, Informative)
Google Jan 2001:
Results 1 - 10 of about 681 for wikipedia. (0.01 seconds)
Google today:
Results 1 - 10 of about 287,000,000 for wikipedia. (0.07 seconds)
That's a 42143900% increase in results! :)
Good Times! (Score:2)
Scary - They probably have the search logs too... (Score:2)
Who knows what kind of pr0n^H^H^H^Hstuff I was searching for 10 years ago!
Seriously though, if they have snapshots of their entire indexes, they most likely have the whole DB snapshots including all search logs as well.
Wikipedia! GITMO! (Score:4, Interesting)
"george w. bush" iraq -- 2001: 21,400 results
"george w. bush" iraq -- 2008: 15,400,000 results
interesting find: "Will George W. Bush launch a new US war of aggression against Iraq?" -- January, 2001 [wsws.org]
wikipedia -- 2001: 681
wikipedia -- 2008: 287,000,000
guantanamo bay -- 2001: 33,500
guantanamo bay -- 2008: 7,200,000
waterboarding -- 2001: 43
waterboarding -- 2008: 1,940,000
al qaeda -- 2001: 1670
al qaeda -- 2008: 20,400,000
Practically no spam (Score:2, Interesting)
Looks like things are indeed getting worse. I search in the 2001 index, and find relevant results, uncontaminated by spam!
The Google index of today is full of the results of seven and a half years of gaming the algorithms, making it harder and harder to use :-(
Mythbusters (Score:2)
http://web.archive.org/web/20011130003737/www.m5industries.com/ [archive.org]
http://web.archive.org/web/20010803003310/www.deadblow.net/Pages/360.html [archive.org]
Slashdot 10 years ago (Score:3, Interesting)
A refreshing search (Score:5, Insightful)
In addition to all the standard "wii gives no results!" posts, what I noticed, and what was nice to see when searching for a few things, was the absolute lack of blog/link spam everywhere. Searching for a couple of terms that I still search for now yielded 300 odd results - but 300 *relevant result*. Searching for the same thing with the 2008 engine gives me tens of thousands - but 90% of them are just pollution results. The 2001 engine actually kicked up a few "new" results for things that, while still technically available on the 2008 engine, are on page 152 of it - and so hence essentially lost and I have never seen them before.
It links in to what I have argued previously - fork search engines. A bleeding edge "just spidered" version for those who want to chase up-to-the-minute things - and a "stable" time-lag version that would defeat the point of spam (if a blog/link spamming campaign has to wait for a couple of years to get their search results in to the stable engine results then they are less likely to bother).
I can google the web page I built in the mid 90's! (Score:3, Interesting)
It finds my old web page hosted on delphi.com. I wrote that HTML on an Apple IIgs in 1996 or so.
That is cool.
Of course the link doesn't work and the archive no longer contains the page. But it was in Google's index.
I googled myself (Score:2)
My site was on the second page of sites for "commodore" and my name, Larry Anderson, was 5th among all the other Larry Andersons. Not bad. :-)
Today, my site is on the fifth page and I'm near the top of page two. Still pretty good. :-)
First Results: (Score:5, Interesting)
Youtube: No results
Myspace: http://freediskspace.com/ [freediskspace.com] also in 2nd is Myspace.com.au, a home improvement site.
Facebook: Environmental Science and Public Policy "facebook" on Harvard's website.
Twitter: A nature site? Even viewing the "archived" version takes me to the 2006 social networking site, so I'm just going by the title.
del.icio.us: No results
PS3: A news story discussing the PS3 circa the PS2 launch. Also, apparently Sony owned the domain name 'ps3.net'
Xbox 360: A site called "360Net," with people anticipating the original Xbox. Now defunct, apparently.
Wii: Williamette Industries, they make forest products supposedly. The other results are equally irrelevant.
Nice slice of pre-web 2.0 life.
And Paris Hilton (Score:3, Funny)
So frustrating! (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm finding snippets of conversations I've had, but which are no longer hosted anywhere.
What was I talking about? Who was I talking to?
I guess it's only the stuff you're extremely embarrassed about which will stay around forever.
site:freerepublic.com "bin laden" attack u.s. (Score:3, Interesting)
Some pretty amazing stuff [archive.org]:
The first comment:
12/13/98 17:34:57 PST
To: vitolins
Don't believe everything this administration puts out. Right now more than ever, they need to scare people. Let's just pray they don't stoop so low as to blow up something themselves.
Mutant proto-truthers rule freerebublic.com.
Credit Crisis warnings from 2000-2002 (Score:4, Interesting)
The Impossibility of a Soft-Landing [archive.org]
June 30, 2000
This acute supply and demand imbalance led to year over year price increases
of 29% in "wine country" and 34% in the Santa Clara region. Elsewhere, prices
surged 17% in Orange Country, 19% in Northern California, 21% in the San
Diego region, and 34% in Monterey. Clearly, this has developed into a
precarious statewide housing bubble. Amazingly, we hear not a word of
concern about what is a major systemic risk to the U.S. financial
system. And, importantly, the Fed's decision to let the party continue
allows the great California real estate bubble to run to even more
devastating extremes. Who is minding the store? Most unfortunately, this
is a replay of the 80's real estate fiasco but at a much grander scale -
actually the proverbial "mountain versus a molehill" applies. Yet,
amazingly, no one dare say "enough is enough," and instead the
dysfunctional marketplace continues to fund the boom despite the
obviousness of the unsound bubble. Massive credit excess feed asset
inflation and a major misallocation of resources, as the Fed tinkers
with rates. What a fiasco.'
Sub-Prime Industry Up in Arms Over Fannie Mae Announcement [archive.org]
December, 2002
Fannie Mae has a new program out for borrowers with lower credit
ratings and the sub-prime industry is taking exception.
The Executive Director of our industry association, NHEMA (link found
in our Resources section) was quoted in today's American Bankers as
saying "Fannie Mae is expanding its mission into areas where it has
virtually no experience, and taxpayers should be prepared for a
bailout that could rival our savings and loan experience," and that
the association predicts that the program will cost Fannie its biggest
losses ever, he said. The outcome, he said, will be that consumers
with credit problems will "be back where they were 25 years ago -- no
access to mortgages or loans at all, other than loan sharks."'
2001 iPhone (Score:3, Interesting)
A search for "iPhone" turned this up: http://web.archive.org/web/20010207002902/www.uioa.com/productcatalog/ [archive.org]
Here's the description:
"The revolutionary iPhone is a fully integrated telephone and Internet device with a built-in touch screen to bring the world of the Internet into your home or office with the touch of your finger. It includes exclusive services and all the most popular telephone features like caller ID and call blocking, along with an Internet dial-up using PPP and e-mail access with multi-user mailboxes.
What can you do with an iPhone?
And all of this can be accessed with the touch of your finger, while talking on the iPhone."
Sound familiar? Apparently this was the 2001 iPhone. [streettech.com]
Re:One Thing Missing (Score:4, Funny)
I did that and EVERYTHING was related to the 11th of September!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And spam [google.com] still meant just meat!
Re:Nigerian Scam results (Score:4, Funny)
And spam [google.com] still meant just meat!
That is definitely a matter of opinion.
Re:no, i don't have 10 minutes. (Score:5, Interesting)
Really?
As a Debian user I enjoyed the time trek back to when Ubuntu had nothing to do with linux.
http://www.google.com/search2001/search?q=ubuntu&hl=en&btnG=Search [google.com]
In the currently charged political climate, I could care less about the troll or flamebait mods anymore so I might as well as fun.