Old School ForeignPolicy.com

  In celebration of its 10th birthday, Google is making the Web, circa 2001, available this month. (For technical reasons, 2001 was the earliest version of its index that it could make available.) Here are some fun findings I came across while playing with the site, which proudly announces “Search 1,326,920,000 web pages”: ForeignPolicy.com. At ...

By , copy chief at Foreign Policy from 2009-2016 and was an assistant editor from 2007-2009.
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592111_081014_old_schoolfp5.jpg

 

 

In celebration of its 10th birthday, Google is making the Web, circa 2001, available this month. (For technical reasons, 2001 was the earliest version of its index that it could make available.)

Here are some fun findings I came across while playing with the site, which proudly announces “Search 1,326,920,000 web pages”:

ForeignPolicy.com. At the time I searched, there was an AIG advertisement at the top of the screen that declared, “The greatest risk is not taking one.” (I guess bailed-out AIG took that statement to its extreme.)

Barack Obama. The name gets 672 results, the first to his page at the Illinois Senate.

John McCain. The first link takes you to the “Straight Talk America” site left over from his 2000 presidential campaign.

Iraq war. It gets 17,600 results, with nine of the first 10 referring to the Iran-Iraq War. (No. 10 is to the “Iraq War Drinking Game.”)

Facebook. The second link that pops up takes you to a page that says, “The facebook is only accessible to people on the Harvard network.”

What kind of antique jewels have you come across while playing with the 2001 Google? Feel free to comment below.

Preeti Aroon was copy chief at Foreign Policy from 2009-2016 and was an assistant editor from 2007-2009. Twitter: @pjaroonFP

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