Below is a table showing a summary of the history of search engines and directories. This table is updated as historical events occur within the search engine industry and as new information becomes available about past search engine history.
Search Engine History data last modified: 2007-06-03
| 2007 R1 |
2007 June | . | . | . |
| Google Acquisitions |
. | . | . | |
| 2006 R1 |
2006 August | 2006 August | 2006 September | . |
| Google launches Writely Beta |
Danny Sullivan resigning from SEW |
MSN launches Live Search |
. | |
| 2006 R2 |
2006 March | 2006 March | 2006 March | 2006 April |
| Google acquires Writely.com |
Google launches Google Mars |
Google joins the S&P 500 Index |
Yahoo! launches FairChase Travel |
|
| 2006 R3 |
2006 January | 2006 February | 2006 February | 2006 March |
| Google launches Google Video |
SE traffic 5.1 billion searches per month |
Teoma/Ask.com The Butler is gone |
Zeal Directory discontinued |
|
| 2005 R1 |
2005 August | 2005 September | 2005 October | 2005 December |
| MSN acquires Teleo (VoIP) |
Google offers free WiFi to San Francisco |
Google launches Google Local |
AOL acquires Truveo |
|
| 2005 R2 |
2005 March | 2005 May | 2005 June | 2005 August |
| IAC/InterActiveCorp acquires AskJeeves |
AskJeeves acquires Excite Europe |
Corey Rudl dies at age 34 |
Incisive acquires SearchEngineWatch |
|
| 2005 R3 |
2005 March | 2005 March | 2005 January | 2005 January |
| Yahoo! Celebrates 10th Anniversary |
Overture Renamed Yahoo! SMS |
Gigablast Index Size 1,000,000,000+ |
AOL Search Relaunches |
|
| 2004 R1 |
2004 November | 2004 November | 2004 August 19 | 2004 September |
| New MSN Search | Google Index Size 8,058,044,651 |
Google IPO GOOG NASDAQ |
Amazon launches A9.com Search |
|
| 2004 R2 |
2004 August | 2004 June | 2004 June | 2004 June |
| Yahoo! launches Local Search Engine |
New MSN Search Technology Preview |
AOL acquires Advertising.com |
Yahoo! launches Yisou.com China |
|
| 2004 R3 |
2004 June | 2004 June | 2004 March | 2004 March |
| Ask Jeeves acquires Tukaroo Search |
Google invests in Baidu Search China |
AltaVista switches to Yahoo! Search |
Google Gmail free email service |
|
| 2004 R4 |
2004 March | 2004 March | 2004 March | 2004 March |
| Yahoo! Toolbar with WebRank |
AlltheWeb switches to Yahoo! Search |
AskJeeves acquires Excite, iWon, My Way |
Yahoo! Site Match™ powered by Overture |
|
| 2004 R4 |
2004 February | 2004 February | 2004 February | 2004 January |
| Yahoo! Web Search powered by Yahoo! |
Lycos Search discontinued |
Lycos Communities discontinued |
New MSN Search BETA |
|
| 2003 R1 |
2003 October | 2003 October | 2003 July | 2003 June |
| Google acquires Sprinks |
Yahoo! acquires Overture |
Yahoo! to buy Overture |
Google AdSense | |
| 2003 R2 |
2003 April | 2003 April | 2003 April | 2003 April |
| FindWhat acquires Espotting |
Google acquires Applied Semantics |
Overture acquires AltaVista |
Overture acquires Fast/AlltheWeb |
|
| 2003 R3 |
2003 March | . | . | . |
| Yahoo! acquires Inktomi |
. | . | . | |
| 2002 R1 |
2002 December | 2002 July | 2002 March | 2002 March |
| Froogle | Gigablast Beta |
LookSmart acquires WiseNut |
Gigablast Pre-Beta |
|
| 2002 R2 |
2002 February | . | . | . |
| Google AdWords Select |
. | . | . | |
| 2001 R1 |
2001 October | 2001 September | 2001 September | 2001 August |
| GoTo changes name to Overture |
AskJeeves acquires Teoma |
WiseNut | LookSmart integrates Zeal |
|
| 2001 R2 |
2001 May | 2001 April | 2001 February | 2001 February |
| JoeAnt | Teoma | GoGuides | Google acquires Deja Archive |
|
| 2000 R1 |
2000 December | 2000 October | 2000 September | 2000 September |
| Google Toolbar | Google AdWords | LookSmart acquires Zeal Media |
Espotting | |
| 2000 R2 |
2000 September | 2000 June | 2000 June | 2000 May |
| Business.com | Vivísimo | Yahoo! Web Search powered by Google |
Terra acquires Lycos |
|
| 1999 R1 |
1999 November | 1999 September | 1999 August | 1999 July |
| NBCi/Snap | FindWhat | AlltheWeb | Disney acquires Infoseek |
|
| 1999 R2 |
1999 June | 1999 February | 1999 January | 1999 |
| CMGI acquires AltaVista |
GO Network | At Home acquires Excite |
About.com | |
| 1998 R1 |
1998 October | 1998 September | 1998 September | 1998 June |
| Lycos acquires Wired/HotBot |
MSN Search | ODP/DMOZ | ||
| 1998 R2 |
1998 May | 1998 April | 1998 | . |
| Yahoo! Web Search powered by Inktomi |
Direct Hit | GoTo acquires WWW Worm |
. | |
| 1997 R1 |
1997 August | 1997 July | 1997 April | 1997 February |
| Northern Light | FAST Search | Ask Jeeves | The Mining Company |
|
| 1997 R2 |
1997 | . | . | . |
| GoTo | . | . | . | |
| 1996 R1 |
1996 October | 1996 June | 1996 May | 1996 April |
| LookSmart | Archive.org | HotBot | Alexa | |
| 1996 R2 |
1996 January | 1996 | 1996 | . |
| BackRub | Mamma | Dogpile | . | |
| 1995 R1 |
1995 December | 1995 October | 1995 September | 1995 August |
| AltaVista | Excite | Inktomi | Magellan | |
| 1995 R2 |
1995 August | 1995 June | 1995 May | 1995 February |
| DejaNews | MetaCrawler | SavvySearch | Infoseek | |
| 1994 R1 |
1994 December | 1994 July | 1994 April | 1994 April |
| First W3C meeting at MIT |
Lycos | Yahoo! | WebCrawler | |
| 1994 R2 |
1994 January | 1994 | . | . |
| Galaxy | Open Text | . | . | |
| 1993 R1 |
1993 December | 1993 December | 1993 December | 1993 November |
| RBSE | JumpStation | WWW Worm | Aliweb | |
| 1993 R2 |
1993 August | 1993 June | 1993 March | 1993 March |
| Mosaic Web Browser |
WWW Wanderer | Jughead | First email message sent by Bill Clinton |
|
| 1993 R3 |
1993 February | . | . | . |
| Architext | . | . | . | |
| 1992 R1 |
1992 December | 1992 July | . | . |
| Veronica | Lynx Web Browser |
. | . | |
| 1991 R1 |
1991 May | 1991 April | 1991 April | . |
| WWW Server Production |
Gopher | WAIS publisher fed search engine |
. | |
| 1990 R1 |
1990 December | 1990 | . | . |
| WWW Server Prototype |
Archie | . | . |
Admin Note: The authors of the above search engine history summary do not claim that the dates indicated are 100% accurate. We've researched multiple documents from various resources and have ascertained that the dates above are an approximation based on the search engine history information we've obtained. Some dates represent inception of the search engine or directory. Other dates are actual launch dates where the search engine or directory was made available to the public.
Last modified: 2008-01-20T19:55:07-0800