Legal Research

Search Engines

By Ted Tjaden

In updating a list of Internet search engines, I realize how so many have “dropped off”, presumably given the dominance of Google.

I checked Wikipedia’s entry for web search engines and like their chronological listing of search engines from 1993 to current (the history of web browsers is also good).

Mosaic and Magellan anyone?

I was fortunate to be in information studies at the University of Toronto between 1995 and 1997 when web browsing was just starting to take off (and yes, prior to that I gophered on a ‘486 computer on an extremely slow telephone modem).

However, given the dominance of Google I have since more recently missed the launch of some newer search engines listed in the Wikipedia article, including:

Duck Duck Go (great name!)

Mugurdy

Yebol

I was sad to see that SearchEngineWatch.com now appears to be focused exclusively on search engine optimization and marketing (whereas in the past it was more about comparing search engines). A sign of the times, I guess.

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on January 20, 2010 (boomark / email).