Google has put up a search page that lets you search the January 2001 index of Google.

Google has its 10 year anniversary this year, and this nostalgic version of Google is part of the celebration.

Over at the Official Google Blog Shirin Oskooi notes that:

“Now that we’re a decade old, we figured we’re long overdue for some spring cleaning. We started digging around our basement and found all kinds of junk: old Swedish fish, pigeon poop, Klingon translation books. Amazingly enough, hidden in a corner beneath Larry’s and Sergey’s original lab coats, we found a vintage search index in mint condition.”

We are glad to say that Pandia had a strong presence in the index even at that time. But then again, we celebrate our own 10th year anniversary in December.

Note that Google only gives you its 2001 search results. The links do not lead to the 2001 version of the world wide web.

The alternative

It is possible to search older versions of the web by other means. Go over to the Internet Archive and use the Wayback Machine.

The Wayback Machine lets you browse through 85 billion web pages archived from 1996 to quite recently. Type in the web address of a site or page where you would like to start, and press enter. Then select from the archived dates available.

Using the Wayback Machine is both an exhilarating and sobering experience: Exhilarating, because it great to see so much Internet history preserved for future generations; sobering, because this means that any “mistakes” you published at the dawn of the digital age remains there forever.

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