Life before google?

[CerIs]

So i was thinking about this today, what were search engines like before google? Im old enough to remember as i first got onto the net properly around 97 and i remember that i didnt usually use search engines that much. It was usually just typing "sex.com" or "hardcoreporn.net" in the hope that there might be something good there.

I do vaguely remember using Hotbot.com and maybe yahoo but my real question is how did these engines decide authority (im assuming google invented the idea of links = authority right?). Was it all really down to keyword density back then?

C

 

[Bulgar]

I remember CompuServe and Altavista from around that time. No idea how the search engines ranked sites though.

 

[medicalhumor]

go.com, lycos, AOL

 

[PeerFly]

I remember having to submit my sites to search engines. I believe they were indexed based on keyword relevancy. Nothing like what we have today (pagerank and backlinks).

 

[Midas Touch]

This was the SHIT for me back in 1997. mamma.com

Their slogan was, "The Mother of ALL search engines!" back then. They had damn good relevant search results compared to the others available at the time.

I was saddened to see her toppled.

I Also used WebCrawler Web Search from time to time.


When I wanted something I usually went to the Newsgroups in the .alt forums to find it. This was of course BEFORE they got over-run by PORN ads. This forced me back onto the Web. I still used Geo & Gopher sites for info though.

I then started using Lycos (Can you say "Sit Ubu Sit"? Lulz)

Later I started using AltaVista

Used Yahoo! once in a while.

Then it was MSN which of course is now Bing

I used Google once in a while over the years until about 2006 when I started using it almost exclusively. "The Googles".

Google is of course my default search these days, but I'm starting to study Bing as "I" think that there may be some pretty good gold to mine from it. It's taken some time, but it looks like the Sheeples are starting to warm up to it now.


I also use this site quite often to go back and see what pages looked like to study their progressions and to get ideas. Welcome to The Internet Archive Wayback Machine

Google Nov. 1998 http://web.archive.org/web/19981111184551/http://google.com/

Google Dec. 1998 Google!

Google Nov. 1999 Google

Google Nov. 2000 (The birth of AdWords.) Google

MSN Oct. 1996 Welcome to MSN

 

[Magic Hat]

Lycos, Dogpile, Askjeeves. Used to actually try and ask Jeeves questions.

 

[BlueYonder]

Yahoo! was king for a while, and there was also Excite.com, a search engine/portal site. I used Alta Vista sometimes and remember so many Geocities sites that are gone now.

 

[BigWill]

goto.com

I used to do 5,000-10,000 sales per day paying .20 per click with 0 competition