These URLs:
http://www.google.com//////
http://www.google.com/intl/en//////
http://www.google.com/intl/en/intl/en/
...will take you to an old Google homepage (copyright 2003). And this URL:
http://www.google.com/intl///////
...will take you to an even older homepage (copyright 2001).
You can also get these on archive.org, of course, but it's interesting that these files are still somewhere on Google's web server. |
Yes, and do a search and click on the cache... the cache is also from that era. I tried hezbollah, and clicked on the cache of the wikipedia entry and bbc news article.... 2002. |
I kinda like the 2001 page. It's hard to even remember that design. |
Todd, I can't reproduce that... |
Gee, will these links take you back to the old "we do not censor..." pages?
(I had to ask!) |
this is also nice, google´s stanford site:
http://web.archive.org/web/19990428194807/google.stanford.edu/
Or here the newsletter from larry and Sergey to googl friends:
http://web.archive.org/web/19991009030623/www.egroups.com/group/google-friends/ |
How and why do the trailing slashes affect what webpage you get?
Perhaps it's an artifact of the URL rewriting rules at Google's end. |
My guess is that it is a weirdness caused by caching systems.
That said, two //'s do have a special meaning...they are supposed to indicate a new path relative to the protocol. Look at Slashdot.org's source code if you want an example, because it is used there (note the usage of "//images.slashdot.org"). |
Remember that some of those multiple slashes are just acting as any normal characters (and being ignored), not as significant parts of the URL.
For example, David's original "(copyright 2001)" page with a URL of: http://www.google.com/intl/////// with 7 slashes can also be found with 3, 4, 5, 6 or, say, 24 slashes.
Or this: http://www.google.com/intl/this-is-where-we-keep-the-old-pages//
More on Google's handling of double slashes here: http://blogoscoped.com/forum/10977.html |
