By Sandor Panton,ContributorYAHOO, INFOSEEK, Lycos, Excite, Inktomi and Alta Vista were the focus in last week's article examining the world-wide web search engines of the past and present.
In this the conclusion, the search portals AskJeeves.Com, Dogpile, Hotbot, LookSmart, Overture, AllTheWeb and Teoma are the focus.
ASKJEEVES.COM
Ask Jeeves started out in 1996 as an on-line question answering service that could take "natural language" questions and return answers and results for these questions. This service is still offered, but in 2001 it acquired the Teoma search engine, and has now fully integrated that search engine's search index and capabilities into AskJeeves.Com. Teoma which means "expert" in Gaelic, was founded in 2000 by a team of scientists from Rutgers University.
DOGPILE
Launched in late 1996, DogPile was one of the first 'meta' search engines. A meta search engine does not have its own database of sites, instead it queries the databases of multiple search engines simultaneously, then produces combined search results on a single page. Currently, searches at DogPile query the databases of a number of search engines and directories including Google, Yahoo, AltaVista, Ask Jeeves, AllTheWeb, FindWhat and LookSmart.
HOTBOT
Hotbot also started in 1996, and it was immensely popular then because it was owned and operated by the beloved (by technology fanatics) technology magazine, Wired. In 1998, Lycos bought Hotbot and since then, its popularity has waned. Late last year it was relaunched as a search portal allowing users to query the databases of AllTheWeb.Com, Google, Inktomi or Teoma.
LOOKSMART
Another child of 1996, Looksmart started out as a basic search directory. It was big news in 1999 when they became the primary provider of search results for Microsoft's MSN portal. Many now expect that Looksmart will soon fade into oblivion, as MSN recently decided not to renew its agreement with them when their current contract expires in early 2004.
OVERTURE
Overture started out as Goto.Com in early 1998. It is a pay-per-click (PPC) engine, and the formula for such engines is very simple individuals or companies ask that their web site be included in the PPC's database, they then pay the PPC (Overture in this case) an agreed amount every time their site's listing is clicked. The more you are willing to pay, the higher your ranking for a specific word or phrase. Overture was the first to successfully implement this search engine model
ALLTHEWEB
According to reports, AllThe Web.Com is currently has the second largest search engine database, with nearly 3.2 billion unique pages indexed. Originally launched in 1999 by Norwegian company, FAST, it was bought by Overture in early 2003, and interestingly, Yahoo acquired Overture itself in July 2003.
Two Thousand and Three was a 'year of acquisitions' for international search engines. FindWhat bought ESpotting, Overture bought AllTheWeb and Alta Vista, Yahoo bought Inktomi and Overture, and Google bought Sprinks. What next for 2004! An interesting showdown between the giants Google, Yahoo and MSN looms.
Sandor Panton is an Internet specialist and consultant. If you have any comments, contact him at feedback@jamaica-gleaner.com. This series is brought to you by www.go-jamaica.com, the portal web site of The Gleaner.
