Most of us probably got our Internet connection somewhere 10 years back. It was also around that time we seen the sudden boom on Internet, thanks to Marc Andreessen and Netscape Communicator. Now that we are almost at the end of 2008, we thought it’s pretty interesting to look back at how some of the trend setters and the most trafficked websites were like 10 years back.
Here are some of the top-tier brands of the tech industries and their websites have stayed on the Internet for more than a decade. Let’s take a look at how these websites look like 10 years ago, comparing with that it is now. Full list after jump.
Amazon
Clear-cut navigation is very important for any e-commerce site and we believe Amazon handles this pretty well. The site has not been changing over the pass decade in terms of the amount of content they put forward on the first page. The most obvious change over the pass ten years in Amazon is perhaps swapping the horizontal tab navigation to a left sidebar drop down and bringing their search box to the top.
Amazon 1998

Amazon 2008

Apple
We always like how folks at Apple design their website. They’ve always been the trend setter and their designed inspired a lot of the Web 2.0 design out there. That said, have you seen how their website looks like 10 years ago?
Apple 1998

Apple 2008

Google was still in beta ten years ago. These guys believed in simplicity and there’s no exception whether it’s 1998 or 2008.
Google 1998

Google 2008

Hotmail
Most of us start playing with e-mailing on a free account when we were introduced to the Internet, and when it comes to free email Hotmail is amongst the hottest. Here’s how the web interface looks like before Microsoft decided to turn call it the Windows Live Hotmail.
Hotmail 1998

Hotmail 2008

Microsoft
Microsoft had done tremendous changes to their web frontend over the pass ten years. The old one lacks of graphics and the current definetely has a very strong corporate look.
Microsoft 1998

Microsoft 2008

PCWorld
Ten years ago, PCWorld was using a 3-column display. You can imagine the site to be really congested, considering the fact that most of us (if you already started surfing) were still on monitor resolution 800×600 and below. But over the pass decade, the site has been much more better. Content arrangement is neat, well-organized and the red header with white background definetely make the entire display looks clean.
PCWorld 1998

PCWorld 2008

Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems in 1998 totally recalled us how a typical Geocities and Tripod free template were like.
Sun Microsystems 1998

Sun Microsystems 2008

Time
Time maintained their 3-column display over the pass ten years. Only difference is, they’ve managed to make it way cleaner and neater, even though contents on the website is like 5x more.
Time 1998

Time 2008

Wired Magazine
Wired ten years ago was too text-based and we think the left navigation looks odd with titles in red background and listings in light green. It’s hard to imagine the website to be what they are now, because it totally rocks.
Wired 1998

Wired 2008

Yahoo!
Comparing to what we’ve seen ten years ago and now, Yahoo had undergone quite a significant change in terms of their business model and that totally reflects their web front end. The search-engine based company used to be very ’search engine focused’ but it’s looks more like a information portal now.
Yahoo 1998

Yahoo 2008

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Posted by hongkiat in Inspiration , at 09.16.08
Tags: 1998, history, nostalgia, screenshot, web design, website |
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Comments
klodian September 16th, 2008
nice post
ReplyGoogle 1998 make me lough..
zaxta September 16th, 2008
I wonder how you could get the idea to create this great post. If only I could make an interesting post like you, perhaps my blog had already been well-known by now..at least probably I could get more than just 5 feed subscribers?
ReplyKarl Roos September 16th, 2008
zaxta:
Replyit’s not a very unique idea. Lots of blogs have written about this and the screenshots probably isn’t taken by mr Hongkiat himself ;)
demian September 16th, 2008
awesome all that you post
Replytoday excellent !
so funny, so interesting, a lot of thing to analize!
Janko September 16th, 2008
Lovely, just made me laugh!
ReplyForgaria September 16th, 2008
Good Ol’ Time…
I remember most of them even if I was only 12.
Replydev September 16th, 2008
For me, the amazon and pc world and google is the most look like 10 years ago
Replynoteven September 16th, 2008
go back to future with http://web.archive.org/collections/web.html
ReplyPermana Jayanta September 16th, 2008
Very nice post. Where did you get the images ?
ReplyDanny September 16th, 2008
Nice read dude. Down memory lane…
ReplyGlauber Bandeira September 16th, 2008
Very good the Post!
ReplyDainis Graveris September 16th, 2008
Great post, I just looked over wayback machine if anybody is interested to find out more sites and how they looked 10 or more years ago. If You are interested I just suggest to check my article too, it’s pretty similar though –
Replyhttp://www.1stwebdesigner.com/resources/wayback-machine-history-of-internet/
hongkiat September 16th, 2008
@Karl Although I’ve not read similar stuff anywhere online but I have to agree someone should have done it before, but the screen shots were originally made by me.
@Guys, In case you are wondering, the old screen shots were taken from Internet Archive.
ReplyFoxSmith September 16th, 2008
10 years ago!!!…
Incredible photos…
ReplyJustin (www.DotNetMushroom.com) September 16th, 2008
Are you sure 10 years have passed ??? They look like yesterday !! I still remember them so clearly ! Ah the good old days of the Internet …. where an animated GIF created such an incredible visual impact ! :-) …. great post !
ReplyKid Tech Guru September 16th, 2008
Thanks HongKiat for the great stuff!
ReplyBoltClock September 16th, 2008
I was kinda expecting Mozilla to be in this list :P
ReplyIrene September 16th, 2008
WOW! Time really flies… Looking at all these, very nostalgic hehehe… I remember that I signed up for Hotmail and it looked like that. 10 years had passed…
Reply鞠久朋 September 16th, 2008
Apple PC impressed me a lot.
ReplyThanks for sharing~~
AnggaRifandi September 16th, 2008
I never know the Google BETA interface in 1998, very classic.
ReplyMost of the list I’ve visited, but never know 10 years site look likes before. Great.
Anonymous September 16th, 2008
I didn’t realize “The Matrix” came out 10 years ago. I’m getting old =/
Replychyan September 16th, 2008
This is the 1st time i’m seeing such article. Period.
1998?
i was still playin’ plastic toys for goodness sake. haha
Great post. :)
ReplySlipper September 17th, 2008
I am curious how you got those screen shots, it is interesting.
ReplyJomac10 September 17th, 2008
The Matrix debuted in theaters on March 31st 1999.
Replyhttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/
Jacob September 17th, 2008
One think I’ve noticed is that all of the old pages had underlined hyperlinks, while all of the new pages omitted the underlines on the links.
ReplyPatrick September 17th, 2008
Interesting how most of these websites have barely changed at all really. Some sort of layout, same sort of content on their homepages. Whatever they started doing must have been good and they’ve stuck to it. Maybe that’s why they are still here 10 years later?
Replymobettamoba September 17th, 2008
The most dramatic change was with Yahoo. They went from HTML to every ML
Replyc0d3r September 17th, 2008
i wonder who remembered to take the pics so that they can be compared 10 years in the future !
Replypimbem September 17th, 2008
well, i’ve been wondering how time passed by so quickly..
Reply1998… i was in high school…
cool! let see in the next 10 years, what will gonna change?
Steph September 17th, 2008
very good idea…
Replybob September 17th, 2008
this is history.
ReplyBig Daddy September 17th, 2008
All of them look familiar to me, except Hotmail… I used Mailcity/Lycos back then… Still do for anything I have to sign up for. Pretty sure I had a hotmail addy though, so I am not sure why I don’t recognize it. I have been online since 1996…
Replydetach September 17th, 2008
gosh i miss good old hotmail
Replyhonour chick September 17th, 2008
hahaha… looks like site i would make today.
Replyblogger from silicon valley September 17th, 2008
just like 10 years ago your images take ages to load. you’re off the RSS list.
Replyillusiodesign September 18th, 2008
Blinking text used to rock. Man, hotmail was pretty fugly.
ReplyhomeBiscuitsAndGravy September 18th, 2008
Hotmail is okay cuz it’s free. Otherwise, it gives me a bad case of gas…
ReplyKeron Calame September 18th, 2008
Wow Google had newsletter signup in 1998 hmmmm lol
ReplyOmar September 18th, 2008
hahaha that was awesome…. TIMES changed their look again and it looks old
ReplyCanadian Beaver September 18th, 2008
Nice post! I remember these (and other) websites in their infancies – I was a BBS and IRC user in ‘92, started “surfing” in ‘94 – so, this was a nice trip down memory lane. The lack of a proper grammer/spell check made me cringe a bit, but overall it was a fun read! :D
WD n GJ!
ReplyThe CEO ! September 18th, 2008
Hi !
ReplyI like the old website of google ! it was very funny ! like BD …
Nicole September 18th, 2008
Wow that is so weird to see that.
ReplyI didn’t have internet in 1998 it was only two years later we decided to get it. But this is some real nostalgia here.
This is a really great post and I love the site.
Tarya September 18th, 2008
Thinking back, in ‘98 I wasn’t using the internet yet, but I bet I would have found those designs beautiful. I love the fact that most of them kept the same, or at least a similar, main page structure. Nice post.
ReplyThomas Summer September 19th, 2008
superb find man
ReplyAnonymous September 24th, 2008
Funny how many of these are dated 1999 on the screen shot.
Replyweb September 24th, 2008
lol Amazon doesn’t seem to have changed much. The same over-flowing content and same not-so-eye-candy layout and design.
Replyrandy m. September 25th, 2008
very interesting from the past.
Replyif you wanna see some interesting sites, click on my name above!
updated every 2-weeks.also click on the…previous sites…button
upper left.
Lana September 25th, 2008
Whay is ebay.com not shown? :)
ReplyDid it used to be called “AUCTION WEB’??
tivitune September 25th, 2008
haha. yap. its totyally different..
Replycompanylist October 3rd, 2008
yahoo was like that ten years ago.
Replyyes, how time flies!!
Arjen October 13th, 2008
Great post! Very interesting to see the change in 10 years of internet. I’m wondering what it looks like in 2018!
ReplyHamid October 30th, 2008
Now this is something interesting and yeah I remember what yahoo looked like back then. It was our primary source of search needs.
ReplyAndroid November 21st, 2008
Excellent stuff! Thanks.
ReplyDigital November 26th, 2008
Hmmm 10 years ago…everything is change!
ReplyAddy December 8th, 2008
Google 1998 make me lough.. hahaha
ReplyJamp Mark December 11th, 2008
Views have changed over the years. So as the technology behind the designs. Great post!
Reply1 Procent Podatku December 17th, 2008
funny :)
ReplyNoe January 9th, 2009
The Apple one is hilarious!
Replyadam February 15th, 2009
amazon is still same
ReplyKevin February 27th, 2009
great stuff,the sites were nice in the past too.
Replymark March 6th, 2009
Would you agree, to the most part, they all just added a CSS sheet with some more images haha
Replyayo March 12th, 2009
!Yahoo ‘98 gives me a good memory.
ReplyNice observation though, keep it coming.
Tara March 17th, 2009
That prediction about the VW leaving the Prius in the dust never panned out; i remember being really impressed and intrested in an article i read. it was about an interactive computer communication system that would span the globe. The article went on to state that it had already been deployed for military purposes, but that it would explode once it reached the private sector. One of the hinges of this floodgate was a man who wrote a failproof encryption code (for those of us who are allergic to eavesdroppers) which, once the feds tried to prevent him from releasing it commercially, put it on the internet as on open source. It was one of those “free Willy!” moments as the whale reluctantly makes his way to the open sea. “Free the encryption code!” Protect your right to privacy.
Replyzafer March 17th, 2009
its all about “change”
Replyu know “change ve need”
hm!
Denie April 2nd, 2009
omg.. those hotmail and yahoo interface.. remind me my highschool year
ReplyBrett April 14th, 2009
Its “the past decade”, NOT “the pass decade”. Jesus, did you graduate high school?
Replyobvious April 14th, 2009
Kind of asinine to label it Amazon 1998 when the screen shot clearly states it was October 13, 1999
ReplyFernando April 14th, 2009
And http://www.mailxmail.com ?
What’s appened !
ReplyV.U.M.Sastry Sagi June 16th, 2009
I am using internet since 1996. i paid 250 RS/- to access the net. and 40 RS/- to send a single mail. from that time onwards i am the witness for the technology change. Nice Share. If you can compare windows 2.0/3.0/3.1/3.11 with Windows Vista that would be gr8. Novell 2/3/4 with Open Suse will be gr8.
Thanks & Regards,
ReplyV.U.M.Sastry Sagi
Himmelslaternen June 25th, 2009
Nice post. I love the waybackmaschine!
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