Have you seen the clever soul that managed to find BBC News’ website from back around the time of the 1997 general election? Oh my, what a site (pun intended) to behold it is. Dancing horse gifs, pixellations a go go, it’s pretty impressive how far we’ve* come since then.
*When we say 'we' we actually mean the people that know how to make websites rather than us personally, you understand.
So, we decided to take a look back at what our other favourite websites looked like back in the day. Obviously old timey TheDebrief.co.uk is really boring, we’ve only been live for a year guys – it looks exactly the same. Sorry.
Anyways, using clever site The Wayback Machine we found some of the earliest incarnations of our most-visited sites. Some sites like Twitter and Netflix have robots in place blocking you from heading back in time but here’s the ones we did manage…
Old websites
1 of 8ASOS 2001,
Back in the day when they were still AsSeenOnScreen, ASOS in 2001 was a WHOLE different kettle of fish. On the upside though, you could purchase a shirt as worn by Fatboy Slim for £39.99.
2 of 8Amazon, 2000
As things go there’s not much in the way of change here. In fact, the logo is actually still the same. Good to know they stocked VHS’s though.
3 of 8BBC, 2001
This might have moved on from their ’97 election homepage but not all that much. Good reminder that 2001 was a super cheery year news-wise though.
4 of 8Ebay, 2001
There’s A LOT going on here; it’s primary colours gone wild in this erratic version of the world’s biggest marketplace.
5 of 8Facebook, 2008
More specifically. Beyonce’s Facebook from 2008. Aside from all those super confusing boxes down the side it’s good to know that Bey, ‘like an elite athlete, is hard wired to reach a goal’.
6 of 8Google, 1998
Back in the days when Google was small, local search engine business, it had an exclamation mark at the end of its logo. Now they’re far too cool for such frippery.
7 of 8The Guardian, 2001
I mean, what? Weird. It looks nothing like it does today. Also, way to go on the whole Beijing not getting the Olympics thing….
8 of 8Urban Outfitters, 2005
Would still use, and wear all of the clothes. Nice chair too.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.