Search Engines

Search Engines
Defined by Dictionary.com, a search engine is "a computer program that searches documents, especially on the World Wide Web, for a specified word or words and provides a list of documents in which they are found." There are many types of search engines all across the world and ones specifically used in certain countries. Search engines can be privately owned, owned by the government in certain countries and situations or owned by a multinational corporation like Verizon; who bought AOL for $4.4 billion in 2015. The leading search engine in the world is Google, which started out in Stanford in 1996. Google became the leader in online search due it's accurate search results based on Google Maps, its location based service.



Google
Google is one the most used search engines in the world; covering more than 70 of all search requests. Google was originally formed in 1996 by two Stanford students, who originally named it BackRub. BackRub was a revolutionary way to get search results back. BackRub would make the highest linked page the priority. In 2000, Google became the search engine for Yahoo!, one of the worlds' most popular websites at the time. In 2004, Yahoo! dismissed Google as their search engine, which inevitably led to Google becoming the most used search engine in the world. In 2011, Google racked in 3 billion search results per day.



Bing
Bing was created in 2009 by Microsoft. Microsoft called Bing a "Decision Oriented" search engine. The goal was to increase specific results and retrieve more information than other search engines. Bing also has a side panel which helps the user see what they've previously searched and recommended links regarding their search. In 2009, Bing became the primary search engine for Yahoo!.



Yahoo!
Yahoo! was formed in 1994 by David Filo and Jerry Yang. Yahoo! started out as a directory only company that played second fiddle to search engines. Yahoo! soon realized that search engines were the way to go and quickly started to acquire small search result firms in order to compete. Yahoo! did end up using Google for its search engine, but in 2004 they discontinued their agreement with Google to start using their own Yahoo! search engine.



AOL
AOL was originally formed in 1983 by the name Control Video Corporation; in which allowed users to hook up their Atari to the phone line and rent games for a fee of $1. That didn't last long and the name was changed to Quantum Computer Services. QCS created "Q-Link" and collaborated with Apple on which inevitably became a bust as well.In 1992, AOL finally became in existence and was offered for consumers with Windows computers. In 1996 AOL made it possible for users to use their dial-up service for a flat rate of $19.95. AOL continues to buy and sell start-up companies to try and compete with Google and Yahoo!. Eventually, in 2013 AOL beats Google in video ads for the first time in over 8 years. In 2015, Verizon juggernaut buys AOL for a whopping $4.4 billion



Ask.com
Ask.com was originally named Ask Jeeves in 1997. Ask Jeeves used a popularity based search engine, or DirectHit, that ultimately failed due to intruders, spam, and unrelated content as results. In 2001, Ask Jeeves bought a new formula and the company Teoma, which using "Subject Specific Popularity" technology to search for results. In 2005 IAC, which owns popular sites like ticketmaster.com and match.com bought out Ask Jeeves and changed the name to Ask.com.



DuckDuckGo
In 2008, DuckDuckGo became functional. Created and started by Gabriel Weinberg. Until 2011, DuckDuckGo was fully self-funded. No investors at all; but in that same year DuckDuckGo started to receive funding from angel investors and a firm Union Square Ventures. DuckDuckGo is all open source and continues to be open-source even being invested by venture capitalists.