Google, in honor of its 10th anniversary, has brought back its earliest index circa 2001. January 2001, to be exact, with about 1,326,920,000 searchable web pages. A lot has changed.
I decided to search several terms to see how things have changed. Here’s what I found
—”Facebook”: Brought up a few pages from Harvard and Princeton. Meta description tag from one reads: “The facebook is only accessible to people on the Harvard network.”
—”SEO”: Returned hits for “Sponsors for Educational Opportunity” and “Student Employment Office.”
—”Web 2.0″: Returned 2,470 results. People were starting to talk about Web 2.0.
—”Social Networking Site”: Returned 4 results. Today? 8,000,000.
—”George W. Bush”: Returned 702,000 results, the first one being his campaign website (it now goes to the G.O.P.’s website). The meta tag is “George W. Bush is running for President of the United States to keep the country prosperous.”
—”September 11″: Returned 487,000 results, the top few being from NASA and the National Weather Service.
—”subprime mortgage”: Returned 2,000 results. Hits of reports about problems emerging from the lending of subprime mortgages, including one from the Texas Housing website: “Subprime Mortgage Lending Problem Emerges.”
—”Sarah Palin”: Returned 0 results.
—”John McCain”: Returned 158,000 results, first one being the “Straight Talk America” main page.
—”Barack Obama”: Returned 671 results. Top pages were relating to his work in the Illinois state senate.
What did you search for?
