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."

Comments

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!!

Re:Less evil

[WhiteBandit]

Obviously, this is related to GGG-Gmail?

Re:Less evil

[MoogMan]

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

Well, it renders better in firefox ;)

Re:Less evil

[KinkifyTheNation]

http://oldgoogle.com/

Re:Less evil

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

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

It's like bizarro-Slashdot.

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

Here is the /. article that links to that blog.

... 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!

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: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.

Google's first website

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

Damn thing is still in beta!

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!

slashdotted

[uberjoe]

Think there's a google cache of this?

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?

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?

Re:News??

[Jafafa Hots]

Does everything related to Google get on the frontpage now?

No, it doesn't. I discovered a strange fluke and possible flaw in Pagerank, submitted it here, and it was rejected.

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.

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
1998
1999
2000

Take a look once their server comes up.

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

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

Even earlier evidence of Google

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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.

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 in HTML.

I remember back in the 90's when venture capatalists were giving money to any dot com and people. I wish I would have made *something* and cashed in. Looking at the original google, if that was good enough to get them funded, I could have been a millionaire.

Back then I was using webcrawler or excite (which was my hompage before they started to suck). I wonder how the hell they both failed, when they were much better in the start.

Mirrors

[sucker_muts]

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

Re:Um...

[PxM]

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

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!

This is news?

[nick8325]

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

Re:hhmm....

[hey]

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

neither { news() nor matters() }

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.

"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.

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/ on the "We've moved" link.

Re:hhmm....

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Wooyay!

[88NoSoup4U88]

We slashdotted Google !

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

We slashdotted Google !

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.

Re:Larry and WHO?

[nick8325]

No, it's not.

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

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>

Another important piece of Google history

[Peter Cooper]

Sergey Brin in drag during his Stanford days!

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

Holiday Logos of the past...

[DoubleDangerClub]

Did anyone see the Google archive?

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

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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...

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...

Not quite correct

[baadger]

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

Technically this is incorrect, the first 'Google website' is archived under google.standford.edu. 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, or Sergey's and Larry's 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?!

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.

And a million nerds...

[erkdaap]

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

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.

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....

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