{"id":5458,"date":"2026-01-19T08:10:41","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T08:10:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/icon-era.com\/statistics\/?p=5458"},"modified":"2026-09-14T16:41:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T16:41:11","slug":"google-in-1998","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/icon-era.com\/statistics\/google-in-1998\/","title":{"rendered":"Google in 1998"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div id=\"ie-1998\">\n<div class=\"board\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<button class=\"tap\" id=\"v-go\">Search<\/button>\n<button class=\"tap\" id=\"v-lucky\">I&#8217;m feeling lucky<\/button>\n<button class=\"tap pale\" id=\"v-blank\">Empty the page<\/button>\n<\/div>\n\n<h2>Look at what is not there<\/h2>\n<p>No pictures. No panel down the side. No tabs, no chips, no autocomplete. A serif face because nobody had decided what a search engine should look like yet, a category list because directories were still how people found things, and an exclamation mark after the name.<\/p>\n<p>It is a working page, not a picture of one. Type in it and results come back in the old shape.<\/p>\n\n<h2>The kilobytes<\/h2>\n<p>Under every result there is a file size. In 1998 that number told you whether the page was worth the wait, and it is the single most dated thing on the layout, more than the typeface and more than the beta label. Nobody has published a page weight next to a link in twenty years.<\/p>\n\n<h2>Before it had the name<\/h2>\n<p>The project was called BackRub, after the way it read links between pages. It became Google in 1997 and looked like this a year later, running out of a university department with an index in the tens of millions rather than the trillions.<\/p>\n<p>Old google, google 1998, google in1998, google 1998 trick, all the same page. The other thing that survived from that era untouched is the pagination at <a href=\"https:\/\/icon-era.com\/statistics\/goooooooooogle\/\">goooooooooogle<\/a>. If you want less layout still, there is <a href=\"https:\/\/icon-era.com\/statistics\/google-terminal\/\">google terminal<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<style>\n#ie-1998{--blue:#1558d6;--blue2:#4c86f0;--blue3:#a9c4f5;--deep:#0b3aa0;--slate:#5b6675;--mist:#98a2b3;--rule:#dde3ec;--wash:#f2f6fd;font-family:ui-sans-serif,-apple-system,\"Segoe UI\",Roboto,Arial,sans-serif;color:#1a2230;line-height:1.66;margin:0 auto}\n#ie-1998 h2{font-size:25px;line-height:1.3;margin:32px 0 10px;color:var(--deep);letter-spacing:-.2px}\n#ie-1998 h3{font-size:16.5px;margin:20px 0 5px;color:#1a2230}\n#ie-1998 p{margin:0 0 14px}\n#ie-1998 ul,#ie-1998 ol{margin:0 0 15px 20px}\n#ie-1998 li{margin:6px 0}\n#ie-1998 a{color:var(--blue);text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:2px}\n#ie-1998 a:hover{color:var(--deep)}\n#ie-1998 .board{position:relative;width:100%;height:min(70vh,600px);min-height:420px;border:1px solid var(--rule);border-radius:10px;overflow:hidden;background:#fff;box-shadow:0 10px 26px rgba(21,88,214,.1);touch-action:none}\n#ie-1998 .board canvas{position:absolute;left:0;top:0;width:100%;height:100%;outline:0}\n#ie-1998 .readout{display:flex;flex-wrap:wrap;gap:16px;justify-content:center;margin:12px 0 0;font:600 13px ui-sans-serif,\"Segoe UI\",Arial;color:var(--slate)}\n#ie-1998 .readout b{color:var(--deep);font-size:15px}\n#ie-1998 .row{display:flex;flex-wrap:wrap;gap:9px;justify-content:center;margin:12px 0 20px}\n#ie-1998 .tap{background:var(--blue);color:#fff;border:0;border-radius:8px;padding:12px 20px;font:700 14px ui-sans-serif,\"Segoe UI\",Arial;cursor:pointer;box-shadow:0 4px 12px rgba(21,88,214,.25)}\n#ie-1998 .tap:hover{background:var(--deep)}\n#ie-1998 .tap:active{transform:translateY(1px)}\n#ie-1998 .tap.pale{background:#fff;color:var(--blue);border:1px solid var(--blue3);box-shadow:none}\n#ie-1998 .tap.pale:hover{background:var(--wash)}\n#ie-1998 .stick{display:grid;grid-template-columns:repeat(3,54px);gap:7px;justify-content:center;margin-top:10px}\n#ie-1998 .stick button{background:#fff;border:1px solid var(--blue3);color:var(--blue);border-radius:8px;height:46px;font:700 17px ui-sans-serif,Arial;cursor:pointer}\n#ie-1998 .stick button:hover{background:var(--wash)}\n#ie-1998 .stick .gap{visibility:hidden;border:0}\n#ie-1998 .curtain{position:absolute;inset:0;display:grid;place-items:center;background:rgba(255,255,255,.93);text-align:center;font:700 20px\/1.45 ui-sans-serif,\"Segoe UI\",Arial;color:var(--deep);cursor:pointer;z-index:4;padding:18px}\n#ie-1998 .curtain em{display:block;font-style:normal;font-weight:500;font-size:13.5px;color:var(--slate);margin-top:5px}\n#ie-1998 .typein{display:flex;gap:8px;justify-content:center;margin-top:12px;flex-wrap:wrap}\n#ie-1998 .typein input{border:1px solid var(--blue3);border-radius:8px;padding:11px 13px;font:600 14px ui-sans-serif,Arial;width:min(280px,70%);color:#1a2230}\n#ie-1998 .typein input:focus{outline:2px solid var(--blue2);outline-offset:1px}\n\n#ie-1998 .vintage{position:absolute;inset:0;overflow:auto;background:#fff;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",Times,serif;padding:22px 16px 24px}\n#ie-1998 .vintage .top98{text-align:center;border-bottom:1px solid #1a2230;padding-bottom:12px}\n#ie-1998 .vintage .name98{font-size:44px;font-weight:700;letter-spacing:-2px}\n#ie-1998 .vintage .sub98{font-size:12px;color:#5b6675}\n#ie-1998 .vintage .split{display:flex;gap:24px;max-width:660px;margin:16px auto 0}\n#ie-1998 .vintage .cats{width:150px;flex:none;font-size:12.5px}\n#ie-1998 .vintage .cats b{display:block;border-bottom:1px solid #dde3ec;padding-bottom:3px;margin-bottom:6px}\n#ie-1998 .vintage .cats u{display:block;margin:4px 0;cursor:pointer;color:#1558d6}\n#ie-1998 .vintage .mid{flex:1;min-width:0}\n#ie-1998 .vintage input[type=text]{font-family:inherit;font-size:15px;padding:2px 5px;border:1px solid #1a2230;width:100%}\n#ie-1998 .vintage .btn98{font-family:inherit;font-size:12.5px;padding:2px 10px;border:1px solid #1a2230;background:#f2f6fd;cursor:pointer;margin:9px 4px 0 0}\n#ie-1998 .vintage .found{margin-top:16px}\n#ie-1998 .vintage .found .bar98{border-top:1px solid #1a2230;border-bottom:1px solid #1a2230;font-size:11.5px;padding:3px 0;margin-bottom:12px}\n#ie-1998 .vintage .item98{margin:12px 0;font-size:13px}\n#ie-1998 .vintage .item98 u{font-size:14.5px;color:#1558d6}\n#ie-1998 .vintage .small98{font-size:11px;color:#5b6675}\n#ie-1998 .vintage .foot98{text-align:center;font-size:11px;color:#5b6675;margin-top:18px}<\/style>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Search I&#8217;m feeling lucky Empty the page Look at what is not there No pictures. No panel down the side. No tabs, no chips, no autocomplete. A serif face because nobody had decided what a search engine should look like yet, a category list because directories were still how people found things, and an exclamation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5460,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5458","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-easter-eggs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/icon-era.com\/statistics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/icon-era.com\/statistics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/icon-era.com\/statistics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icon-era.com\/statistics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icon-era.com\/statistics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5458"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/icon-era.com\/statistics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6152,"href":"https:\/\/icon-era.com\/statistics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5458\/revisions\/6152"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icon-era.com\/statistics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/icon-era.com\/statistics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icon-era.com\/statistics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icon-era.com\/statistics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}