The Archive will provide historians, researchers, scholars, and others access to this vast collection of data (reaching ten terabytes), and ensure the longevity of this information.

That was in 1997. Now the site’s about page says:

In late 1999, the organization started to grow to include more well-rounded collections. Now the Internet Archive includes texts, audio, moving images, and software as well as archived web pages in our collections.

It also still alludes to the original concept of providing access for researchers, historians and scholars. An interesting post made by Philipp Lenssen recently notes that this might not be so reliable for such people however. He points to a number of errors and missing information, and questions the reliability of the Internet Archive.

"Should a historian accept this without further verification? And what if I’m unsure if my browser of 2009 shows the same as users saw with older browsers back in 1999? And what if I want to see Amazon.com in its launch year when the Wayback Machine has 0 pages from 1995?" writes Lenssen.

I don’t believe it was his intention to slam the Internet Archive. After all, what else do we have to go on at this point? Who’s done it better? But he inquires, "What will be the tools with which we’ll recover old websites in the future?" and I think that is the real point.

Google’s hell-bent on organizing the world’s information. It’s interesting that they haven’t gone this route yet (at least that we know of).

For example: for every story I write, I run at least one query through Google Blog Search as a way of making sure that my existing sources aren’t either entirely off base or woefully incomplete.  It’s not a bad thing to have additional evidence of those research trips.

Or, to go beyond useful into sanity-saving, this development led Nathan Weinberg to examine his search trends and realize that he never, ever rests.  Should Weinberg not change his habits, he’ll now at least leave behind a more complete virtual path that might mean a lot to sleep deprivation scientists.

In any event, it’s good to see Google begin to track Blog Search histories – this was a rather obvious hole in its approach to record-keeping.

Google Has Web History On Its Side

Probably everyone has run into a moment where they know they saw something on a web page that could answer a question right now, but they can’t remember the website or anything else about the page beyond that.

Perhaps Googlers have that happen to them. Maybe a lot of people have asked for the Web History feature to help them keep their heads above the rising tide of information coming from all directions.

"Imagine always knowing exactly where you saw something online, like that priceless YouTube video of your friend attempting to perform dance moves from a bygone age," Google’s Payam Shodjai wrote at the Official Google Blog about the new service.

It’s open to Google Account holders who use Google’s Toolbar with PageRank enabled. Web History would be available across computers, since Google stores the information. Web History supercedes the Search History feature, and replaces that name.

As in Search History, Web History items can be removed from the list as desired. Since it’s connected to one’s Google Account, it can only be viewed by logging in first. But as Google noted in its Privacy FAQ for Web History, they do keep a separate logging system for auditing purposes. It’s conceivable a Web History item could persist within Google’s memory after it has been deleted.

With Google facing privacy questions over its DoubleClick purchase, the announcement of Web History seems poorly timed. Coupled with the very public battle Google had with the Department of Justice over a request for search information, people may be leery of leaving a complete, personally identifiable web browsing trail where it could be subpoenaed in a legal case.

But Danny Sullivan noted that people running the Google Toolbar with PageRank enabled have been giving Google a web history anyway. By making the Web History feature available, at least people have the option of managing that trail of visits now.