"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.

It was a dark and stormy night when Recliner
wrote in article 1088455404465233183.95365
...
Roland Perry wrote:
In message -
septem
ber.org, at 13:48:15 on Tue, 29 Sep 2015, Recliner
remarked:
And in those 16 years nobody bothered to Google, (or possibly Netscape it
back then)! According to Wikipedia, the film was shot at Aldwych and
Holborn.

Did Netscape ever have a search engine? I don't recall one.

I think back then Yahoo, Excite, Ask (Jeeves) or MSN would have been the
most likely candidates. In those early days, I used a search aggravation
engine

Perhaps it was very aggravating, but I expect they intended to be aggregating.

Drat! The perils of an iPad that thinks it knows what you meant better
than you...


that farmed out queries to multiple engines and combined the
results, as no single engine had comprehensive coverage of the then tiny
Web. Google was just getting started but didn't stand out back then.

Yahoo was more of a collection of human-researched links and didn't have
a search engine until 2002, MSN only started search in 1998, didn't
really settle down until 2005, and in 2009 was rebranded Bing. Ask Jeeves
wasn't until 1997 (about the same date as Google).

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 Hotbot, as I recall, before Google.

G.
--
Grebbsy McLaren

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

On Tue, 29 Sep 2015 16:50:45 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message
-septem
ber.org, at 15:27:17 on Tue, 29 Sep 2015, Recliner
remarked:

Yahoo was more of a collection of human-researched links and didn't have
a search engine until 2002, MSN only started search in 1998, didn't
really settle down until 2005, and in 2009 was rebranded Bing. Ask Jeeves
wasn't until 1997 (about the same date as Google).

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.

Altavista which was rapidly overtaken by Google.

I, too, was an Altavista user. I remember a not-particularly
computer-literate person using Google as a verb a very long time ago.
It was the first time I realised that Altavista had been overtaken.

The first search engine I remember was Yahoo, which I think was
mentioned in a Demon newsletter. I think the address was
akebono.stanford.edu/yahoo

In message , at 19:17:06 on
Tue, 29 Sep 2015, Beer O'Clock remarked:

The first search engine I remember was Yahoo, which I think was
mentioned in a Demon newsletter. I think the address was
akebono.stanford.edu/yahoo

Although Yahoo wasn't a search engine, it was a curated list of sites
compiled by hand.
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote on Tue, 29 Sep 2015 at 16:00:45:
In message
-septem
ber.org, at 13:48:15 on Tue, 29 Sep 2015, Recliner
remarked:
And in those 16 years nobody bothered to Google, (or possibly Netscape it
back then)! According to Wikipedia, the film was shot at Aldwych and
Holborn.

Did Netscape ever have a search engine? I don't recall one.

I think back then Yahoo, Excite, Ask (Jeeves) or MSN would have been the
most likely candidates. In those early days, I used a search aggravation
engine

Perhaps it was very aggravating, but I expect they intended to be
aggregating.

that farmed out queries to multiple engines and combined the
results, as no single engine had comprehensive coverage of the then tiny
Web. Google was just getting started but didn't stand out back then.

Yahoo was more of a collection of human-researched links and didn't
have a search engine until 2002, MSN only started search in 1998,
didn't really settle down until 2005, and in 2009 was rebranded Bing.
Ask Jeeves wasn't until 1997 (about the same date as Google).

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

Gopher and WAIS seem to be in decline.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_%28protocol%29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_a...rmation_server

http://gopher.quux.org:70/Software/Gopher/servers
--
Iain Archer

"Beer O'Clock" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 29 Sep 2015 16:50:45 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message
-septem
ber.org, at 15:27:17 on Tue, 29 Sep 2015, Recliner
remarked:

Yahoo was more of a collection of human-researched links and didn't
have
a search engine until 2002, MSN only started search in 1998, didn't
really settle down until 2005, and in 2009 was rebranded Bing. Ask
Jeeves
wasn't until 1997 (about the same date as Google).

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.

Altavista which was rapidly overtaken by Google.

I, too, was an Altavista user. I remember a not-particularly
computer-literate person using Google as a verb a very long time ago.
It was the first time I realised that Altavista had been overtaken.

The first search engine I remember was Yahoo, which I think was
mentioned in a Demon newsletter. I think the address was
akebono.stanford.edu/yahoo

I was using AltaVista at that time, I switched to Google on the
recommendation of a uni IT officer. This would have been at the start of my
2nd spell at UEA, so Sep-Oct 2000.

James

In message , James Heaton
writes

I was using AltaVista at that time, I switched to Google on the
recommendation of a uni IT officer. This would have been at the start
of my 2nd spell at UEA, so Sep-Oct 2000.

James

Infoseek late 90s
I remember telling my daughters about search engines "it's not what you
seek it's how you seek it". It's much easier now but then if one just
typed in the item you wanted you didn't always get the results you were
looking for.

DejaNews was invaluable too. Was worried when Google bought it.
--
Bryan Morris
Public Key http://www.pgp.uk.demon.net - 0xCC6237E9