Transcript Search Before Google Computer Science 49S Chris Rwabukamba February 1 2007

Search Before Google
Computer Science 49S
Chris Rwabukamba
February 1 2007
Searching Before Google
Briefly describe search engines before Google
• Innovations
• Mistakes
Archie and Veronica
• First internet search engines
• Similar architecture to today’s search engines
• Crawled sources, index, search interface
• Limitations
Had to know file name and address
Lacked semantics
Archie and Veronica
• Who do you think used these type of search
engines? And why?
• Only users techs and academics
Wanderer and WebCrawler
• index as many sites as possible
• Links to a site
• What are some limitations of having
search engines that just focus on indexing
as many sites a possible?
Too much junk not enough substance
AltaVista
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Came from DEC
Google of its era
Objective to give publicity for DEC
Biggest Index
AltaVista
Mistakes
• Could not generate money from search
• Could not keep up with the PC business
• Only used first generation search
Lycos
• Originated from CMU
• Innovations
Analysis of anchor text to get better
meaning of existing page
• Mistakes
Continued to expand but lacked technology
to keep up
Excite
• Created by 6 Stanford Alumni
• First search engine to transcend classic
keyword search
• Statistic analysis of word relationships
• Hypersearching the Web
Excite
Other Innovations:
• My Excite
• Free e-mail
Mistakes
Veered away from search
Yahoo
• Stanford engineering students
• Crawled Internet sites to help win
basketball fantasy league
What made Yahoo different from other
search engines?
What was Yahoo’s main objective?
Yahoo
Innovations:
• What’s hot
• Hubs
Why is Yahoo still one of the top search
engines today?