"Michael R N Dolbear" wrote:
"Recliner" wrote

Before Google, people used AltaVista (1994, which evolved to a
Usenet-only search) and Lycos (1994 again).

What would people have been using in 1999-2000? I have no recollection of
which engine I was using back then, apart from the parallel aggregate
search engine whose name also escapes me.


I was using AltaVista (somewhat later some fool redirected all UK
references to AltaVista.com to AltaVista.co.uk which showed me a blank
screen. I moved to Google.).

Yes, AltaVista was one of the many search engines I remember using.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltaVista
As of 1998, it used 20 multi-processor machines using DEC's 64-bit Alpha
processor. Together, the back-end machines had 130 GB of RAM and 500 GB
of hard disk space, and received 13 million queries every day.[8] This
made AltaVista the first searchable, full-text database of a large part
of the World Wide Web.

The Usenet search and post was Deja
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Groups#Deja_News

Yup, I certainly remember Deja News.