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A BRIEF HISTORY OF SEARCH ENGINES
Think about the world's biggest library. A library with millions upon millions of books, covering every subject imaginable, with any kind of information you wanted there for the asking. Now…imagine that library with no indexing system, all the shelves knocked over, the books strewn all over the floor and the covers and spines ripped off of every book.
That's sort of what the Internet would be like without search engines.
Back in those long-ago days of the early Nineties when the Internet first really started to expand, it soon became apparent that some semblance of order and organization had to be achieved for users to ever be able to find anything. There had to be some way to put all that information in some sort of arrangement where it would actually be accessible for users. That's when the first search engines were developed.
Of course, that's an industry that's had to change and evolve with the times, and it's turned into enough of a big-business proposition, complete with competition and innovation, that the road is now littered with some companies that didn't make it in the long run.
OVERTURE
You may not even remember the name "Overture."
Overture started in the mid-90s as one of the earliest search engines, and soon changed their name to Goto.com. Goto/Overture was eventually absorbed by Yahoo, and became the basis of Yahoo Search Marketing.
Goto, Overture's most notable innovation, was the fact that it developed the first pay-for-placement search service. In the late Nineties, GoTo gave advertisers the option of bidding on how much they could actually pay to get their page up to the top of results in response to a specific search. The idea was that website that could pay were going to be "better," more relevant sites. Needless to say, at up to a dollar per click, it was soon a serious money maker for Overture. There was some outcry from users who didn't want to see the search process becomeo more commercialized, but it definitely paid off for the company as they stayed profitable through the big dotcom shakeout of 2000/01 and was later able to acquire other sites like AltaVista and Alltheweb.
The brand was bought out by Yahoo in 2003 and has become one of Yahoo's main profit drivers. The listing model has been changed somewhat since then; Yahoo Search Marketing's "Panama" scheme was released in '07 and operates somewhat like Google AdWords, with advertisements ranked against search results. It's all somewhat nebulous, but the formula is roughly Bid + Quality Score = Ad Rank, with "quality score" based on the ad's click-through rate, relevance and "quality" of the site's landing page.
Another part of the Overture history that's worth noting is their 2003 partnership with Gator Corporation (now Claria). Gator's software would monitor web users' activity on web sites and search engines, taking note of search keywords. Those keywords were then reported back to Overture's search engine, and the bid system was set up against the frequency of keywords. The down side was that advertisers who used Overture also found their products and services advertised through Gator's adware, whether they wanted them to be or not. The Gator/Claria partnership was eventually phased out after Overture was absorbed by Yahoo. Claria has since announced their exit from the adware business.
INKTOMI
Inktomi may not be a name you're familiar with off the top of your head, but you've used their products.
Founded in 1996, Inktomi was a software company whose products were used in the HotBot search engine. For some time, HotBot was at the top of the heap when it came to search engines, displacing AltaVista before it was in turn topped by Google. Inktomi also developed Traffic Server (for on0demand streaming media), a product that was used by AOL and a few other providers. The company also acquired C2B Technology and Impulse Buy Network, making it a major player in the online shopping business as well as content delivery.
Though Inktomi might not be a household name for most people, there's no question that their technology and innovation was a big contributor to the search engine industry.
NORTHERN LIGHT
If you're a typical user of Google or Yahoo who just needs to look up information on a casual basis, you might never have occasion to use Northern Light. Northern Light isn't any typical search engine, though.
Northern Light is designed for very specialized, specific users who need to do industry research or strategic research. The company is oriented towards custom fit research for large enterprises, optimized specifically for business research applications. A Northern Light user might be trying for market research for a very specific product or service, or trying to get some hard data on what IT industry analysts are saying about their company or products.
Northern Light compiles information from numerous different journals, company websites, papers, blogs and other sources, custom-fit to customers' needs. They also function as an aggregator search engine, pulling in results from other search engines (in much the same way as Dogpile does). They can also develop narrow search engines that are prepared just for a specific customer, and develop platforms for knowledge sharing for entire companies. Another innovative feature is Northern Light Business News, compiling and pulling in information from blogs, newswires, white papers and local and regional news and other trade sources. The Business News feature is designed for professionals in competitive intelligence, product development, strategic planning and market research, and is an easy-to-use, turnkey setup that can be licensed to each specific company. Clients for their strategic research portals have included Cisco, Verizon and Hewlett-Packard, among many other industry leaders in various fields.
SO ...
Think about all the dead technologies that used to be commonplace for communications. The rotary phone, the reel-to-reel tape recorder, the Teletype, VHS machines, eight-tracks, TV's with antennas up on the roof. They all seem pretty quaint now, but they all had their day and all had a role in the growth of technology. Now things like HotBot and AltaVista seem downright quaint, like something from your parents' day…but it wasn't even that long ago. Just like a PC from 2006 is probably going to be about as useful as a doorstop now, the tech behind things like search engines keeps advancing. The one thing you can be certain of when it comes to internet tech is change. The search engine business has changed a LOT over the years and there have definitely been some winners and losers. But it's kind of interesting to take a look backwards and see what worked, what didn't work and how we wound up where we are now, isn't it?
Jerry Renshaw
Content/Admin
Business Communication Solutions
SEO and Webdesign for Austin Texas
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