Editing Google Groups (section)

===Google Groups===
{{update-section|date=February 2025}}
[[File:Google Groups logo.gif|thumb|Previous Google Groups logo]]

By 2001, the Deja search service was shut down. In February 2001, Google acquired Deja News and its archive, and transitioned its assets to groups.google.com.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.google.com/press/pressrel/pressrelease48.html |title=Google Acquires Usenet Discussion Service and Significant Assets from Deja.com |date=February 12, 2001 }}</ref> Users were then able to access these Usenet newsgroups through the new Google Groups interface.

By the end of 2001, the archive had been supplemented with other archived messages dating back to May 11, 1981.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.google.com/googlegroups/archive_announce_20.html |title=20 Year Archive on Google Groups |date=December 11, 2001 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.pandia.com/searchworld/2001-26-usenet.html |title=Full Usenet archive now available |publisher=Pandia |date=April 29, 2001 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060312224725/http://www.pandia.com/searchworld/2001-26-usenet.html |archive-date=March 12, 2006  }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1709527.stm |title=Digital history saved |publisher=[[BBC News Online]] |date=December 14, 2001 }}</ref> These early posts from 1981 to 1991 were donated to Google by the [[University of Western Ontario]], based on archives by [[Henry Spencer]] from the [[University of Toronto]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/01/07/saving_usenet/index.html |author=Katharine Mieszkowski |title=The Geeks Who Saved Usenet |work=[[Salon (website)|Salon]] |date=January 7, 2002 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030902002600/http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/01/07/saving_usenet/index.html |archive-date=September 2, 2003  }}</ref> A short while later,{{When|date=September 2014}} Google released a new version that allowed users to create their own non-Usenet groups.

When [[AOL]] discontinued access to Usenet around 2005, it recommended Google Groups instead.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/25/aol_cutsoff_newsgroups/|title=AOL ditches newsgroups |first=John |last=Oates |date=January 25, 2005 |website=[[The Register]]}}</ref>

In 2008, Google broke the Groups search functionality and left it nonfunctional for about a year, until a ''[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]]'' article spurred the company to fix the problems.<ref name="wired1" /><ref name="wired2" />

On February 13, 2015, a [[Vice Media]] story reported that the ability to perform advanced searches across all groups had again become nonfunctional, and to date, Google has neither fixed nor acknowledged the problem. The researcher interviewed stated, "Advanced searches within specific groups appear to be working, but that's hardly useful for any form of research—be it casual or academic."<ref name=motherboard />

As of January 2024, Google Groups carries a header notice, saying:

{{Blockquote|Effective from 22 February 2024, Google Groups will no longer support new Usenet content. Posting and subscribing will be disallowed, and new content from Usenet peers will not appear. Viewing and searching of historical data will still be supported as it is done today.}}

An explanatory page adds:<ref>{{cite web |title=Google Groups ending support for Usenet - Google Groups Help |url=https://support.google.com/groups/answer/11036538?visit_id=638401644159352995-1779246639 |website=Google Support}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|In addition, Google's Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) server and associated peering will no longer be available, meaning Google will not support serving new Usenet content or exchanging content with other NNTP servers.

This change will not impact any non-Usenet content on Google Groups, including all user and organization-created groups.}}