Google before it was google

I’m not sure how I stumbled on it, but I came across this really old version of the BackRub home page – which is what evolved into Google. Its kind of interesting to see that some of the links that work and see some of the things that they mention.

I particularly enjoy the note to ‘ignore cgi-bin errors’ and that performance is slow due to NFS and antiquated hardware

Also, in the description of their logo in the FAQ is funny:

“The logo is simply a scan of my hand, from a flatbed scanner converted to black and white. The “back” in the picture is the scanner cover, and the shadows are from the scanner light.”