Search Engines: Yesterday and Today

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Search engines have altered the way that people live and they have been around since the 1990s. Before that this time concepts that now drive search engines were being formed. Scientists and computer engineers such as Vannevar Bush, Gerard Salton and Ted Nelson each made contributions that helped to set the foundation of the modern search engine. Archie was the first prototype search engine that was created in 1990 by students at McGill University. Archie was the prototype search engine helped to launch many more advanced search engines such as Veronica and Jughead. Two years later Matthew Grey of MIT created a web robot that searched and indexed information on the web. By 1993, the Wanderer was created and it was the first search engine that resembles the types that are in use today. The World Wide Web was also created in 1990 but it didn't go public until 1993. LyCos then emerged as the world's first commercial search engine and other engines such as InfoSeek, AltaVista and Excite which was the top search engine by the late 1990s. Yahoo entered the market during the 1990s and it too was a top rated search engine. When 1998 rolled around two computer scientists named Larry Page and Sergey Brin introduced the world to Google. This particular search engine used a feature called pagerank, which is used to rank websites by their search engine results. This site also rated web links by popularity and relevance. This made Google faster and more precise with search results. Many of the original search engines are still around but a lot of people no longer use them or even remember their names. Now there are only three big search engines and they are Google, Yahoo and Bing. Many people realized that Google's search engine was very useful and it helped to cater to their needs. Yahoo also realized this as well and allowed Google to use the same technology for their site. By 2003 the company had literally became the world's best search engine in history. In 2014, Google is starting to revolutionize its search engine model by using social media technology to revolutionize how people search for information. Although many might consider Google as the starting point for everything online, it’s not always the best resource for every niche. When locating an inmate, you’ll want to use another search engine, by the name of Slammer Search. Yes, it’s actually recommended over Google for those types of queries. However, for everything else, Google is most definitely your best bet. So there you go, search away.