Google: 2001 vs. 2008
In honor of its 10th anniversary Google has put its oldest available index, January 2001, online. I know that the internet has grown exponentially since 2001, but typing in a couple of search terms really drives the point home.
I was really curious about the term “virtual assistant” since this is the industry that our business model is based upon and we are always hearing about how quickly this industry is growing.
“virtual assistant” 9,370 vs. 1,390,000 + 14,835%
Next I tried a celebrity that was popular back then and has continued to be in the news. The result? A lot more pages in 2008 than in 2001 but percentage wise it didn’t come close to matching my first search.
“Britney Spears” 1,100,000 vs. 82,900,900 + 7,536%
Finally I punched in a phrase that seems to be on everyone lips (and keyboards) in 2008 - social media. I was curious if anyone was talking about it in 2001. The answer? Not so much. A quick scan of “social media” pages that were listed in 2001, shows that most of them were not discussing social media in the same context that we use it today.
“social media” 1,430 vs. 19,900,000 + 1,391,608%
Wish I could find a way to grow our revenue by 1.4 million percent in the next 7 years…
