DENVER — Twenty-seven years ago, the World Wide Web became available for anyone to use. While the foundations of what would become the internet had been invented a few years prior, Aug. 23, 1991 is considered the first day the outside world could use it.
We’ve collected some pictures of what web pages looked like in their early days.
Google is the most visited website in the world. It now takes 85,000 employees to keep the company running — a far cry from its humble beginnings in 1998. Back then, the page looked much like it does today:
Yahoo!
Yahoo!, another early pioneer on the web, had a basic layout in 1996:
YouTube
YouTube launched in February 2005, when the site appeared like it does below. In November 2006, Google bought it for $1.65 billion.
Amazon
Now one of the largest companies in the world, Amazon looked like this in 1995, shortly after its founding by Jeff Bazos the year before:
CNN
CNN launched its first website in 1995. By 2000, this is what visitors saw on its homepage:
The New York Times
One of the most famous newspapers in the world published its website in January 1996. In November of that year, it looked like this:
FOX31 Denver
FOX31 Denver’s website has evolved significantly over the years. It has had several URLs, including FOX31.com, MyFOXColorado.com and — now — KDVR.com. The screenshot below is from FOX31.com in 2004.
Colorado’s Own Channel 2
During the internet’s early days, KWGN’s site looked nothing like it does today. The below image is from 1997. In 2016, KDVR and KWGN’s websites merged into one.
