If only all sites looked this good... {4president.us}

There’s a slight chance that rapper Nelly had the Internet in mind when he wrote the song “#1″ earlier in the decade:

What does it take to be number one
Two is not a winner and three nobody remembers, tell me
What does it take to be number one, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh

Was he referring to Web 1.0 (old content-rich HTML sites) as the best, and Web 2.0 (the social web) as lacking? And, to top it all off, did Nelly just say that no one will remember “Web 3.0” (the semantic web)? Probably not, but such a thought reminds us that Web 1.0 was a necessary building block in the grand scheme of the Web.

So, what makes an old site old and how these sites can be re-discovered?: (Adapted from sister-site 404PageFound)

1. A site created between 1994-2001 is ideal (pre-dot-com bubble burst)
2. Site last modified pre-2005, assuming it has a creation date from the mid-1990’s
3. Plain text or an archive of e-mail/newsgroup postings (very old)
4. Contains only HTML, CGI, Perl, or early Java (no PHP or CSS elements)
5. Page source code contains old date for confirmation, or old publishing software/browser citation
6. Utilizes old HTML methods and tags: animation, font-size, tables, frames
7. Clearly optimized for limited bandwidth (low-resolution graphics, simple layout)
8. Site received an Internet award in its prime (”Site of the Day”, etc.)
9. No social media whatsoever (apart from guestbook or bookmark links)
10. Content is written by the author for an audience – no user generated content
11. Can be GeoCities/Angelfire/Tripod/etc.

What does not necessarily make a site Web 1.0:

1. Simplicity
2. Lack of images
3. Post-2004 sites meant to look dated
4. Frames
5. Sites with general poor design

Best Places to Look For Old Websites:

• Used books from 1995-1997
• Old bookmark lists
• Old directory listings
• Web award site archives
• Links from old pages
• Web search for old awards, servers, years, software
• Exploration of moderately old sites for even older internal links

Bonus: Don’t forget to check out the 1996 Presidential Campaign Web Sites!