Of the many uses for the internet in today’s day and age, one of the biggest is the use of it for information. And the easiest way to find what you’re looking for is through an online search engine. Search engines have been around for just about as long as recreational internet usage has. Here’s a brief history of online search engines.
Archie
The very first search engine to hit the internet was Archie. It’s name was derived from removing the letter “v” from the word “archive.” Compared to what we have today, Archie appears rather primitive as it was only able to show the listings, and not the content, for each site because of limited space.
Search Engine Optimization
Appearing somewhere in the early 90’s, search engine optimization services quickly became very important to search engines even back then. Search engines, themselves, provided information and SEO firms assisted with the quality of the searched information. Today, SEO services and businesses continue to flourish with the ever-changing technological advancements of the internet.
Yahoo! Directory
Appearing roughly four years after Archie, Yahoo’s success is clear in that it is still a major website even today. Though it initially started out as a collection of favorable webpages, it began to grow into it’s own search engine in 2002.
Before it became to global giant it is now, Google was a small site that had a shaky footing, as no one wished to buy the PageRank technology at first. But with a few investors and both AOL and Yahoo selecting Google as their search partner, the site rapidly grew. Google now owns somewhere between 65 to 70% percent of the shares in search engine marketing and continues to be the highest search engine firm out there, becoming huge in the digital marketing businesses.
MSN
Launching around the same time of Google, MSN relied heavily on things like Overture and Inktomi until it’s competitor, Google, started using backlinks. In 2005, it ceased using Yahoo!’s results and began using it’s own, in-house technology.
Bing
Bing came onto the market in 2009, however is actually existed before that. It was a re-branding of MSN/live search. It now remains one of Google’s top competitors.
