Cool retro Google logo, circa 2001 Posted by Thomas Eorgan, SVP, Marketing
It's hard to believe that n-tara is closing in on its 10 year anniversary (we were founded in May 1999) and another company you may have heard about is also celebrating 10 years in business this month: Google. In honor of their anniversary, they are letting users journey back in time to 2001 (their earliest available index) where you can search webpages and actually see many of the 2001 era webpages. When you click on a webpage result, you get taken to today's live version of the website. When you click on the link to "View old version on the Internet Archive," you are taken to the earliest 2001 copy of that webpage on the Internet Archive so you can see what the full webpage used to look like.
You better act fast, because the journey to 2001 search is for a limited time only: Google is turning off the feature in mid October.
As we all know, search has come a long way in 10 years. Back in 2001 there were a whopping billion+ web pages in existence and today there are over 1,000,000,000 (that's TRILLION) unique URL's. Google is now a verb, and thousands of firms (including us) have made search marketing a staple for their clients seeking to be 'front paged' in keyword searches. To that end, n-tara interactive has a suite of tools and a staff of experts that can help you dissect the art and science that is SEO.
While you're Google-ing, you might also want to check out Google 'Easter Eggs', hidden frivolity that Google has surreptitiously unleashed upon web surfers. PC World has compiled a great list of the 17 best Google easter eggs.
You can also view some fun facts about Google in their corporate timeline, including this nugget:
Google was originally called "BackRub". "In 1997, Larry and Sergey decide that the BackRub search engine needs a new name. After some brainstorming, they go with Google -- a play on the word "googol," a mathematical term for the number represented by the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros. The use of the term reflects their mission to organize a seemingly infinite amount of information on the web."
These guys truly had a vision.
Have fun and Happy 10th Birthday, BackRub Google!