Search engines of the 1990s

04 Aug 2008 15:51

Cuil may be the new kid on the search-engine block, but plenty of older competitors are still holding their own

The new kid on the search-engine block is Cuil, but search engines have been around as long as the internet.

Here's a look back at some of the first homepages of search engines that are still around today, and some that have passed on.

The images you see on the following pages come from the Wayback Machine.

Here's the homepage of Cuil, which claims to have the largest web index on the planet.

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AltaVista was the Google of the late 1990s. It was one of the most popular search engines of its time. Still in existence, AltaVista is now owned by Yahoo and is powered by Yahoo Search.

This screenshot dates from October 1996.

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Before Ask.com, there was Ask Jeeves. Ask Jeeves differed because it allowed searches to be phrased in the form of a question, rather than by entering keywords like most search engines.

Ask Jeeves fired Jeeves and is now simply Ask.com.

This screenshot dates from April 1997.

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Dogpile is a meta-search engine which draws on other search engines for results. Here's an early version from June 1997.

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Excite was an early competitor to Yahoo. It tried to be the next Yahoo by becoming an internet service provider and portal, as well as a search engine.

Excite merged with @Home and subsequently foundered. It was ultimately acquired by Ask.com.

This is Excite's homepage from October 1996.

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Here's one of the early homepages of a search-engine company called Google. It's from December 1998.

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Lycos was a popular, early search engine, like AltaVista. It has gone through several owners and iterations but remains a popular search engine.

This page is from October 1996.

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Before Live.com was MSN Search.

Search was always more of a sideline for MSN, rather than a central feature. Microsoft has since focused more on search, but its offering is still not nearly as popular as Google's.

This screenshot dates from December 1998.

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CNET Networks, now CBS Interactive, purchased the Search.com domain at an early stage. Search.com is a meta-search engine like Dogpile.

This page dates from October 1996.

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WebCrawler was an early meta-search engine. It has gone through several owners and now belongs to InfoSpace.

This screenshot is from October 1996.

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Although Yahoo has always been a portal of sorts, one of it's earliest successes was in the realm of search. It was an early king of search, overthrowing others such as AltaVista.

This screenshot dates from October 1996.

Story URL: http://resources.zdnet.co.uk/articles/imagegallery/0,1000002003,39456309,00.htm