How Was Your Company Doing Online in 2001?

As does Seth Godin, I've suggested to company leaders, "Google yourself."

That would answer the question, "How is your company doing online in 2008?"

Now we can do a retro-Google.

Google "found" its own search engine from 2001.

Here's Google 2001.

Here's a description of its finding in 2001: A Search Odyssey from The Official Google Blog.

Here's commentary on Google 2001 from Gizmodo.

In Google 2001, a search for me as I was then--Anne Giles--showed first.

My keywords?  Again, a search for what I was then--Internet business consultant--came up fourth.

Not bad.

A search for myself with my former married name?  Lots of listings.  I click a link.

"The page cannot be found."

Comments

[Competitive Intelligence]

You might also get a kick out of the Internet Archive's "Way Back Machine": www.archive.org

There you can see archived versions of 85 billion website pages back as far as 1996... what fun!

[Anne Clelland]

I took a look and found this article I wrote in 1999. Note point #2: "It's who you know." Almost 10 years later, that's still a theme...

http://annegilesclelland.typepad.com/1999.pdf