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Timeline of web search engines

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This page provides a full '''timeline of web search engines''', starting from the [[wikipedia:Archie search engine|Archie search engine]] in 1990. It is complementary to the [[wikipedia:history of web search engines|history of web search engines]] page that provides more qualitative detail on the history.
 
== Sample questions ==
 
The following are some interesting questions that can be answered by reading this timeline:
 
* What are some historically significant search engines and when were they launched?
** Sort the full timeline by "Event type" and look for the group of rows with value "Search engine launch".
** You will see the launch of search engines, notable for their historical importance like {{w|WebCrawler}}, or by their magnitude, like {{w|Google}} and {{w|Yahoo!}}.
* What are some significant events illustrating the evolution of {{w|internet search}}?
** Sort the full timeline by "Event type" and look for the group of rows with value "Search evolution".
** You will see the evolution of internet search toward {{w|mobile search}}, and the envisage of future mainstream search toward [[w:voice search|voice]].
* What are some numbers illustrating the evolution of search engine?
** Sort the full timeline by "Event type" and look for the group of rows with value "Statistics".
** For internet userbase evolution, sort the full timeline by "Event type" and look for the group of rows with value "Statistics (internet userbase)".
 
==Big picture==
 
{| class="wikitable"
! Time period !! Development summary !! More details
|-
| || Pre-web search engine period ||
|-
| || web search engine period ||
|-
| || Google period ||
|-
|}
==Full timeline==
|-
| 1993 || December || First web search engine to use a crawler and indexer || [[wikipedia:JumpStation|JumpStation]], created by [[wikipedia:Jonathon Fletcher|Jonathon Fletcher]], is released. It is the first WWW resource-discovery tool to combine the three essential features of a web search engine (crawling, indexing, and searching).<ref name=seh/><ref name=internetseh/><ref>{{cite web|url=http://metro.co.uk/2009/03/15/why-we-nearly-mcgoogled-it-545208/|title = Why we nearly McGoogled it|date = March 15, 2009|accessdate = February 3, 2014|publisher = ''Metro''}}</ref>
|-
| 1993 || || Statistics || There are approximately 600 websites online at the time.<ref name="seo.comf"/><ref name="William R."/>
|-
| 1993 || || Statistics (internet userbase) || The are about 10 million internet users at the time.<ref name="seo.comf"/>
|-
| 1994 || January || Search engine launch || {{w|Stanford University}} students {{w|Jerry Wang}} and {{w|David Filo}} create {{w|Yahoo!}} in a campus trailer. Yahoo starts originally as an Internet bookmark list and directory of interesting sites. Webmasters have to manually submit their page to the Yahoo directory for indexing so that it would be there for Yahoo to find when someone performed a search.<ref>{{cite book |last1=So |first1=Shermon |last2=Westland |first2=J.Christopher |title=Red Wired: China’s Internet revolution |url=https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=vbqIAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA1&dq=%22yahoo%22+%221994%22+%22wang%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwidqce2vtToAhX4HLkGHcw-BL4Q6AEIVDAF#v=onepage&q=%22yahoo%22%20%221994%22%20%22wang%22&f=false}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Huff |first1=Priscilla Y |title=Business and Industry |url=https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=mywYAAAAIAAJ&q=%22yahoo%22+%221994%22+%22wang%22+%22filo%22&dq=%22yahoo%22+%221994%22+%22wang%22+%22filo%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiNs-HSvtToAhWNErkGHVkZBGkQ6AEIKDAA}}</ref><ref name="20 Years of SEO: A Brief History of Search Engine Optimization"/><ref name="wordstream.come"/>
|-
| 1994 || July || New web search engine || [[wikipedia:Lycos|Lycos]], a web search engine, is released.<ref name=internetseh/> It began as a research project by [[wikipedia:Michael Loren Mauldin|Michael Loren Mauldin]] of [[wikipedia:Carnegie Mellon University|Carnegie Mellon University's]] main [[wikipedia:Pittsburgh|Pittsburgh]] campus.
|-
| 1994 || || Statistics || The number of websites grows to 10,000, up from 600 websites in 1993.<ref name="William R."/>
|-
| 1995 || || New web directory || [[wikipedia:LookSmart|LookSmart]] is released. It competes with [[wikipedia:Yahoo!|Yahoo!]] as a web directory, and the competition makes both directories more inclusive.
| 1995 || Late year || Search engine launch || {{w|Excite}} is commercially released as a crawling search engine.<ref name="thehistoryofseo.com"/><ref>{{cite book |last1=DESAI |first1=SANDEEP |last2=SRIVASTAVA |first2=ABHISHEK |title=SOFTWARE TESTING : A Practical Approach |url=https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=B4sQDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA280&dq=Excite+1995&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwibwo7-pNToAhVFE7kGHU08B3kQ6AEIQjAD#v=onepage&q=Excite%201995&f=false}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Comm |first1=Joel |title=Click Here to Order: Stories of the World's Most Successful Internet Marketing Entrepreneurs |url=https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=YkEdWYvuUk8C&pg=PA263&dq=Excite+1995&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwibwo7-pNToAhVFE7kGHU08B3kQ6AEIUjAF#v=onepage&q=Excite%201995&f=false}}</ref>
|-
| 1995 || || Statistics || The number of websites grows to 100,000, up from 10,000 websites in 1994.<ref name="William R."/> |-| 1996 || January–March || Search engine launch || {{w|Stanford University}} students {{w|Larry Page}} and {{w|Sergey Brin}} build and test [[w:BackRub (search engine)|Backrub]], a new search engine that ranks sites based on inbound link relevancy and popularity. The crawler begins activity in March.<ref name=internetseh/> Backrub would ultimately become {{w|Google}}.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Breverton |first1=Terry |title=Breverton's Encyclopedia of Inventions: A Compendium of Technological Leaps, Groundbreaking Discoveries and Scientific Breakthroughs that Changed the World |url=https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=VepgBQAAQBAJ&pg=PT559&dq=backrub+1996&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjSo8P3qNToAhVUDrkGHd4jBoYQ6AEIMTAB#v=onepage&q=backrub%201996&f=false}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=MIRANDA GONZALEZ |first1=FRANCISCO JAVIER |last2=RUBIO LACOBA |first2=SERGIO |last3=CHAMORRO MERA |first3=ANTONIO |title=Dirección de operaciones. Casos prácticos y recursos didácticos |url=https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=N9r7CAAAQBAJ&pg=PA105&dq=backrub+1996&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjSo8P3qNToAhVUDrkGHd4jBoYQ6AEIQzAD#v=onepage&q=backrub%201996&f=false}}</ref><ref name="20 Years of SEO: A Brief History of Search Engine Optimization"/><ref name="seo.comf"/>
|-
| 1996 || May || New web search engine || [[wikipedia:Inktomi|Inktomi]] releases its [[wikipedia:HotBot|HotBot]] search engine.<ref name=internetseh/><ref name="tellmeyourgoal.coms"/>
|-
| 1996 || || Statistics || The number of websites grows to 650,000, up from 100,000 websites in 1995.<ref name="seo.comf"/><ref name="William R."/>
|-
| 1996 || || Statistics (internet userbase) || The are about 74 million internet users at this time.<ref name="seo.comf"/>
|-
| 1996 || || || A search engine called "{{w|RankDex}}" from IDD Information Services, designed by {{w|Robin Li}}, launches, providing a strategy for site-scoring and page-ranking.<ref>{{cite journal |last= Li |first= Yanhong |date= August 6, 2002 |title= Toward a qualitative search engine |journal=IEEE Internet Computing |volume= 2 |issue= 4 |pages= 24–29 |doi= 10.1109/4236.707687}}</ref>
|-
| 1997 || April || New natural language-based web search engine || [[wikipedia:Ask Jeeves|Ask Jeeves]], a natural language web search engine, that aims to rank links by popularity, is released. It would later become [[wikipedia:Ask.com|Ask.com]].<ref name=internetseh/><ref name=official-google-history>{{cite web|url=https://www.google.com/about/company/history/|title = Our history in depth|publisher = [[wikipedia:Google|Google]]|date = September 15, 1997|accessdate = February 1, 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Sajja |first1=Priti Srinivas |last2=Akerkar |first2=Rajendra |title=Intelligent Technologies for Web Applications |url=https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=f_7RBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA88&dq=%22Ask+Jeeves%22+%22in+1997%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj35ryevNToAhXYCrkGHfJmD80Q6AEIMDAB#v=onepage&q=%22Ask%20Jeeves%22%20%22in%201997%22&f=false}}</ref> AskJeeves later becomes [[w:Ask.com|<code>ask.com</code>]].<ref name="seo.comf"/><ref name="tellmeyourgoal.coms"/><ref name="ddd"/>
|-
| 1997 || September 23 || New web search engine (non-English) || [[wikipedia:Arkady Volozh|Arkady Volozh]] and [[wikipedia:Ilya Segalovich|Ilya Segalovich]] launch their [[wikipedia:Russian (language)|Russian]] web search engine yandex.ru and publicly present it at the Softool exhibition in Moscow. The initial development is by Comptek; Yandex would become a separate company in 2000.<ref name="yandexcomhistory">[http://company.yandex.com/general_info/history.xml About Yandex &mdash; History of Yandex]. Retrieved May 24, 2011. [http://www.webcitation.org/5yvl8XgIr Archived copy].</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Hidden Champions in CEE and Turkey: Carving Out a Global Niche |edition=Peter McKiernan, Danica Purg |url=https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=PGi4BAAAQBAJ&pg=PA300&lpg=PA300&dq=%22Yandex+Search%22+%22september+23%22&source=bl&ots=1fQcDh-YcJ&sig=ACfU3U0WxatvZ4q6wbel4tAr59N4KAbUWQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjZxYvk1ovpAhWQGbkGHVBvCWYQ6AEwAHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22Yandex%20Search%22%20%22september%2023%22&f=false}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Johnsen |first1=Maria |title=Multilingual Digital Marketing: Become The Market Leader |url=https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=vjOMCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA84&lpg=PA84&dq=%22Yandex+Search%22+%22september+23%22&source=bl&ots=8YgZ-E7AaI&sig=ACfU3U13sMAd0kRIllCx0hKkNrHo-mZcTQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjZxYvk1ovpAhWQGbkGHVBvCWYQ6AEwAXoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22Yandex%20Search%22%20%22september%2023%22&f=false}}</ref> It is Russia’s largest search engine.<ref name="seo.comf"/>
|-
| 1997 || || Statistics || The number of websites surpasses 1,000,000, up from 650,000 websites in 1996.<ref name="William R."/><ref name="seo.comf"/>
|-
| 1998 || June 5 || New web directory || Gnuhoo, a web directory project by [[wikipedia:Rich Skrenta|Rich Skrenta]] and [[wikipedia:Bob Truel|Bob Truel]], both employees of [[wikipedia:Sun Microsystems|Sun Microsystems]], launches.<ref name=internetseh/><ref name="SlashdotGnuhoo">{{cite web|url=http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=98/06/23/0849239| accessdate = April 27, 2007|work=[[wikipedia:Slashdot|Slashdot]] | title=The GnuHoo BooBoo}}</ref> It would later be renamed the [[wikipedia:Open Directory Project|Open Directory Project]].
|-
| 1998 || || Search engine launch || [[w:Yahoo! Gemini|Goto.com]] launches with sponsored links and paid search. Advertisers bid on Goto.com to rank above organic search results, which are powered by {{w|Inktomi}}. Goto.com would be ultimately acquired by {{w|Yahoo!}}.<ref name="20 Years of SEO: A Brief History of Search Engine Optimization"/><ref name="amcodigital.com"/>
|-
| 1999 || May || New web search engine || [[wikipedia:AlltheWeb|AlltheWeb]], based on the Ph.D. thesis of Tor Egge at the [[wikipedia:Norwegian University of Science and Technology|Norwegian University of Science and Technology]], titled ''FTP Search'', launches. The engine is launched by Egge's company [[wikipedia:Fast Search & Transfer|Fast Search & Transfer]], established on July 16, 1997.<ref name=internetseh/>
|-
| 1999 || || Statistics || The number of websites online reaches 2.2 million.<ref name="seo.comf"/>
|-
| 1999 || || Statistics (internet userbase) || The number of internet users reaches 279 million.<ref name="seo.comf"/>
|-
| 2000 || January 1 || New web search portal || [[wikipedia:Baidu|Baidu]], a Chinese company that would grow to provide many search-related services, launches.
|-
| 2002-3 || || Web search business consolidation || [[wikipedia:Yahoo!|Yahoo!]] buys Inktomi (2002) and then [[wikipedia:Overture Services Inc.|Overture Services Inc.]] (2003) which has already bought [[wikipedia:AlltheWeb|AlltheWeb]] and [[wikipedia:Altavista|Altavista]]. Starting 2003, Yahoo! starts using its own [[wikipedia:Yahoo Slurp|Yahoo Slurp]] web crawler to power [[wikipedia:Yahoo! Search|Yahoo! Search]]. Yahoo! Search combines the technologies of all Yahoo!'s acquisitions (until 2002, Yahoo! had been using Google to power its search).
|-
| 2003 || || Statistics (internet userbase) || The number of websites online reaches 38 million.<ref name="seo.comf"/>
|-
| 2003 || || Statistics (internet userbase) || The number of internet users reaches 782 million.<ref name="seo.comf"/>
|-
| 2004-5 || November (2004) - February (2005) || Change in backend providers || Microsoft starts using its own indexer and crawler for MSN Search rather than using blended results from [[wikipedia:LookSmart|LookSmart]] and [[wikipedia:Inktomi|Inktomi]].
|-
| 2006-2009 || || New human-curated web search engine || [[wikipedia:Wikia|Wikia]] launches [[wikipedia:Wikia Search|Wikia Search]], a search engine based on human curation, but then shuts it down. Relevant dates: publicly proposed December 23, 2006<ref name=TimesDec23>{{cite web|last=Doran|first=James|url=http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9075-2517026,00.html|title=Founder of Wikipedia plans search engine to rival Google|work=The Times |location=London |date=December 23, 2006|accessdate=January 6, 2007 }}</ref> and January 31, 2007,<ref>[http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=197003494 Wales: Search Wikia Will Succeed Where Google Cannot], InformationWeek, February 5, 2007. Retrieved July 27, 2007.</ref> private pre-alpha December 24, 2007,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://lists.wikia.com/pipermail/search-l/2007-December/000845.html |title=private pre-alpha invites available |accessdate=December 24, 2007 |last=Wales |first=Jimmy |date=December 24, 2007 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/24/AR2007122401567.html |title=Wikia Search Project to Launch January 7, Wales says |accessdate=December 24, 2007 |date=December 24, 2007 |work=The Washington Post}}</ref> toolbar release August 2008, shutdown March–May 2009.<ref>[http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10207896-2.html Wales giving up on Wikia Search]</ref>
|-
| 2007 || || Search evolution || Search starts to evolve in new ways. Updates are aimed at improving the user experience.<ref name="20 Years of SEO: A Brief History of Search Engine Optimization"/>
|-
| 2008 || January 28 || New web search engine || [[wikipedia:Cuil|Cuil]], a web search engine created by ex-Googlers that uses picture thumbnails to display search results, launches.<ref name="AP1">Liedtke, Michael, ''[http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25884709 Ex-Google engineers debut 'Cuil' way to search]'', Associated Press, 28 July 2008, retrieved 13 Dec 2009</ref> It would later shut down on September 17, 2010.<ref>{{cite news|author=Michael Arrington|title=Cuil Goes Down, And We Hear It’s Down For Good|url=http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/17/cuil-goes-down-and-we-hear-its-down-for-good/|publisher=TechCrunch|date=2010-09-17}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|author=Devindra, Hardawar|title=Supposed Google-killer Cuil’s reign of terror may finally be over|url=http://venturebeat.com/2010/09/17/supposed-google-killer-cuils-reign-of-terror-may-finally-be-over/|publisher=VentureBeat|date=2010-09-17}}</ref><ref name=REF_ID>{{cite news |title=Cuil is Stone Cold – Another 'Google Killer' Bites the Dust |author= |newspaper=SearchEngineWatch |date=2010-09-18 |url=http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/100918-132701 }}</ref>
|-
| 2009 || June 3 || Search engine launch || [[w:Bing (search engine)|Bing]] launches, with {{w|Microsoft}} aggressively marketing it as the search engine that would produce noticeably better results than {{w|Google}}.<ref name="A Brief History of Search & SEO"/><ref name="seo.comf"/>
|-
| 2009 || July 29 || Web search engine consolidation || [[wikipedia:Microsoft|Microsoft]] and [[wikipedia:Yahoo!|Yahoo!]] announce that they have made a ten-year deal in which the [[wikipedia:Yahoo! Search|Yahoo! search engine]] would be replaced by Bing. Yahoo! will get to keep 88% of the revenue from all search ad sales on its site for the first five years of the deal, and have the right to sell adverts on some Microsoft sites. Yahoo! Search will still maintain its own [[wikipedia:user interface|user interface]], but will eventually feature "Powered by Bing™" branding.<ref>{{cite news |title=Microsoft and Yahoo seal web deal |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8174763.stm |date=29 July 2009 <!-- 13:58 UK --> |accessdate=2009-07-29 |publisher=BBC News}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=REFILE-UPDATE 1-Microsoft, Yahoo in 10-year Web search deal |url=http://www.reuters.com/article/CMPSRV/idUSN2921665320090729 |date=Jul 29, 2009 <!-- 8:27am EDT --> |accessdate=2009-07-29 |author=Tiffany Wu |author2=Derek Caney |publisher= [[wikipedia:Thomson Reuters|Thomson Reuters]] }}</ref> All Yahoo! Search global customers and partners are expected to be transitioned by early 2012.<ref name=YahooHelp>{{cite web|url=http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/search/alliance/alliance-2.html;_ylt=AvrC8b99B5.r4JmW33gA5ChaMnlG|title=When will the change happen? How long will the transition take?|publisher=Yahoo!|date=1 December 2011|accessdate=10 May 2012}}</ref>
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