The internet has become such an important part of our lives. We book our holidays with it, read the news with it, some of us even find our life partners with it! And lets face it, it's changed the world of real estate! But how many of us were saying "oh just look it up on Google" ten years ago?
Not many of us, because a decade ago Google was still all new and shiny, just launched to the world wide web and probably none the wiser that it would become the world's favourite website.
To celebrate Google's tenth birthday, they've brought back the 2001 version for us to play with.
Searching 'property blog' on the 2001 archive brings up 2,310 results (of which none are actually property blogs) compared with today's 13,600,000 results for property blog, most of which are pretty darn accurate.
ActiveRain must have just been the apple of Jon Washburn's eye back in 2001, as ActiveRain only got two results on old Google...and neither of these were property related ;-) Today, you're looking at 1,810,000 results for our favourite real estate blogging community.
Searching for 'Globrix' (the property search engine I work for here in the UK) in 2001 would have brought you, well, nothing. Search for Globrix today and there are around 762,000 results.
'Real estate' has always been a popular search term it seems, even in 2001 you could have found 11.5million results, but compare that to today's 624million results and you can see that the world of online real estate has come along way. Buyers are now spoilt for choice when looking for property for sale.
I have to say I was impressed to see that when googling myself (not as dirty as it sounds) on the 2001 version of Google I found two accurate results, one a review of BBC comedy The League of Gentleman and the other a review of a new Destiny's Child album...what an uber cool 14 year old I was, hmmmm.
Go search crazy on the old Google here, and sit back and think how of how far we've come in just seven years.
Hey Poppy Nice post But I never hear from you about marketing in the UK I have some ties there and would love to see some cross the Atlantic marketing any thoughts
And who would of thought of it ten years ago...maybe now we won't be reluctant to look at other venues. Happy 10th Google!
Wow isn't it amazing how much has changed in ten years? I can not believe it.
Wow 10 years ago - I was 19 and struggling in Jr. College with not a thought of real estate in my head - the worl has definately changed since then lol
Thanks for the great post!
I remember when it was first announced that Google was going public. I thought to myself what do we need another search engine for as we have yahoo, msn, etc. Google opened I believe at $85 then, and today even in these troubled economic times, they are trading at over $400 a share!
Ah yes, I remember google back then, it was frustrating to use the search engines, just couldnt find much, Cant search without them now!!
Thanks! I am going to the link now.
WOW! What a difference time makes. Everything "geekish" has changed so fast over the last ten years that even people who are lucky enough to not rely on computers can be called geek.
Do you think......, knowing what I know about SEO today (although still very little) I could have found myself at the top of the search results for Jacksonville Real Estate?
Nice post!
Thanks Poppy, I'm still amazed that just one decade has changed our lives so much.
Wow, the Internet sure has evolved in the last ten years. I Googled my name and in 2001 I had eight results and today I have 2,310. What a big difference. Thanks.
Crazy! This is a fun exercise! According to Google, I didn't exist on the internet 10 years ago which is probably accurate. I think back then I was using ftp sites and bulletin boards!
Charlie - Sorry if you've emailed me and I haven't gotten back to you, I've been very busy and have only just started a new job. If you want to message me with more detail I'll try and help out :-)
Neal - Happy 10th indeed, I forgot to send them a card, but I'll happily eat cake in their honour.
Carol - Imagine what it will look like in 2018!
Shaun - I know what you mean, it's weird to think about what we were doing 10 years ago. I was at school worrying about hair, boys and math homework!
Rick - I wish I'd bought some of that stock then, I bet we all do!
Jamie - I used to be a lycos fan, because of the cute black labrador, but they were never too helpful. Now most peoples homepage is a search engine.
Melody - Find anything silly?
Mike & Cindy - I wonder if people were even thinking about SEO then, there just wasn't that competition for the number one slot. I wonder when the term SEO was coined.
Richard - I think the next decade will show us the internet's real potential, it will be amazing!
Michael - You must have done a lot of online marketing in the last seven years ;-)
Ravi - It's fun huh? Glad you liked it :-D
Featured @ Club Chaos
I didn't even have a website back in 2001. I was just about computer illiterate
Wow, Poppy D, that was pretty cool. 3 art related and 2 NYCDOC related results compared to 8,710 today. :-)
Very cool. I didn't know you could do that. Wish I had bought Google stock back then!
That was interesting for sure. Interesting how the first two pages were dominated, at least in my area, by corporate real estate sites, or more third party sites. very cool.
How fun! In 2001 I had been in real estate for 7 years, I can find my name on page one for being the President of the local high school PTSA - but no real estate mention. Today I fill the first 5 full pages of google for my name search. Wow - what a difference!
I think it is amazing thaht Active Rain was alive back then!
Well, I came up as #7 for my own name, number #1 for my (then) business name, and #5 for "Virtual Office Assistant" (there were no results back then for "Real Estate Virtual Assistant" - now it says there are about 25,000 of us!) Cool post!
What great information!!! Thanks for pointing me to it and sharing those stats with the community!
Poppy ... that is funny .. thanks for sharing! I didn't even know what Google was back then.
I certainly say "google it" more than I ever thought possible. Great post!! Can't wait to check out the old link. Thanks for sharing!
Hey Poppy Great post, it was not clear to me how could I check out the old link to 2001? Could you enlighten me? Thank you in advance, Cheers, Endre p.s.: never mind I went back to your post and figured out:))Thanx
Poppy, this was fun! I looked back and was able to take a peek at my first website. What a difference a decade makes. :) Thanks for the links and the memories...
Results 1 - 10 of about 384 for missy caulk. (0.15 seconds) in 2001
Results 1 - 10 of about 31,100 for missy caulk. (0.30 seconds)2009
Amazing, isn't it. Thanks for sharing this, very cool.
Poppy - I saw this mentioned on Twitter a few times yesterday, and I was astounded to see just how different the results really were seven years ago. Most of the big players back then don't even exist now in my market.
Poppy,
That is a pretty neat thing Google has done. It is amazing the distance we have came in technology in just 7 years. I have googled a few things about the local market and it is amazing the results. I just had to check out what some of my brokers were doing 7 years ago. Kind of funny!
So where will we be in 5 years....10 years? After such a major change in the industry over such a short period of time it is beyond comprehension where we will be in 10 years. Maybe I will know by then how to blog.........
Interesting look back, and a lot has changed since then. I'm already focusing on 2009, and looking forward to seeing the search results change early next year.
It's hard to believe Google's been around that long. Well, as they say, time flies!
Google is awesome and always saves the day. The other day someone spiilled candle wax on an oriental rug and the first thing everyone in the room said was go google how to get rid of it.
the answer- take a paper bag and place it over the wax and then iron it out. It worked perfectly!
Hi Poppy,
Such a cool post. It is crazy to think back ten years and remember how many people did not even use computers. Then you think about PDAs and cell phones and people thought you were wealthy because you had the new Palm pilot. It is strange to think how we would have lived life today if we did not have the technology, but try to imagine how many of us would be able to function today without these luxuries... yikes!
When are you coming to get the key lime pie? :)
Mike S, too funny! You make great points. :-)
Out of the top 10 for my key words, only 1 site is still in the top 10 from 2001, I think that is pretty amazing!
Hi Poppy,
In 2001 we were #2 for the term Wilmington Real Estate....now it is #13, so tenure has kept us there, and SEO has not helped. Same web site and provider now for the last 10 years....back to the drawing board. Enjoy the new job!
Dick Beals