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-------------------------------------------------------------- This story was printed from ZDNet Australia. --------------------------------------------------------------
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Photos: Search engines from the '90s By John Sheesley, TechRepublic August 04, 2008 URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/software/soa/Photos-Search-engines-from-the-90s/0,130061733,339291046,00.htm
Were you on the Net in the '90s? This photo gallery takes a look back at the first home pages for some of today's largest search engines, along with those that have passed on. 
The new kid on the block for search engines is Cuil. But search engines have been around as long as the Internet. Here's a look back at some of the first home pages of search engines that are still around today, and some that have passed on. The images you see on the following pages come from The Wayback Machine. Here's the home page of Cuil, the newest search engine which claims to have the largest Web index on the planet. Credit: The Wayback Machine 
AltaVista was the Google of the late '90s. It was one of the most popular search engines of its time. Still in existence, AltaVista is now owned by Yahoo and is powered by Yahoo Search. This screenshot is from October 1996. Credit: The Wayback Machine 
Before Ask.com, there was AskJeeves. AskJeeves was special because it allowed searches to be phrased in the form of a question, rather than entering keywords like most search engines. AskJeeves fired Jeeves and is now simply Ask.com. This screenshot comes from April 1997. Credit: The Wayback Machine 
Dogpile is a meta-search engine that draws on other search engines for results. Here's an early version from June 1997. Credit: The Wayback Machine 
Excite was an early competitor to Yahoo. It tried to be the next Yahoo by becoming an ISP and portal as well as a search engine. Excite merged with @Home and subsequently cratered. It was ultimately acquired by Ask.com. This is Excite's home page from October 1996. Credit: The Wayback Machine 
Here's one of the early home pages of a little search engine company called Google. It's from December 1998. Credit: The Wayback Machine 
Lycos was an early popular search engine like AltaVista. It has gone through several owners and iterations as well, but still remains a popular search engine. This page is from October 1996. Credit: The Wayback Machine 
Before Live.com was MSN Search. Search was always more of a sidelight for MSN, not a central feature. Microsoft has since focused more on search, but it still isn't nearly as popular as Google. This screenshot comes from December 1998. Credit: The Wayback Machine 
CNET Networks, publisher of This page is from October 1996. Credit: The Wayback Machine 
WebCrawler was an early metasearch engine. It has gone through several owners and now belongs to InfoSpace. This screen is from October 1996. Credit: The Wayback Machine
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