We’ll begin by clearing up a common misunderstanding. Did you ever wonder what the difference is between the Internet and the World Wide Web? Many people believe that the two terms can be used interchangeably. In actuality, nothing could be further from the truth.

The Internet is a worldwide network of computer networks. It was dreamed up in 1969 by a U.S. government agency called ARPA, or the Advanced Research Projects Agency. (In fact, the Internet’s original name was ARPANET.) Nowadays, you can access the Internet via telephone lines, cable, fiber optics, and other communication mediums.

The Internet: A worldwide network of computer networks

The World Wide Web is younger still. It came into being around 1990, when researchers realized that they could use the Internet to connect a web of stored hypertext pages and make them accessible to people around the world. That web of pages grew from a handful at the outset to billions today.

The World Wide Web is, by far, the most commonly used application on the Internet. (E-mail is another application of the Internet that you’re familiar with.)

All users of the Web utilize HTTP, or the hypertext transfer protocol, in order to navigate from one Web site to another. Look at the address bar near the top of your Web browser. You’ll find that the www is preceded by http://. This tells the Web site that you’re on the World Wide Web and that you’re using the hypertext transfer protocol.

It’s important to understand the difference between the Internet and the Web so you can fully grasp how search engines work. While search engines use the Internet, they don’t search the entire Internet. Typically, search engines only search for Web sites on the World Wide Web.

The Search Engine Power Players, Yesterday and Today

For a young industry, the search engine field already has quite a past! Here’s a quick summary of important points on the search engine timeline. If you’re a real history buff, you’ll find more details in the FAQs for this lesson.

1993: The first widely acclaimed search engine, the World Wide Web Wanderer, appears. Created to measure the growth of the Web, it performs its job through 1997. The statistics compiled by this search engine are still available on the Web today.

1994: WebCrawler comes on the scene. The original WebCrawler database contains just 6,000 Web sites. (I think I have more Web sites than that listed in my favorites!) AOL-now there’s a name you probably recognize-purchases WebCrawler in 1995, but sells it just two years later to Excite. Infospace, its current owner, buys WebCrawler when Excite declares bankruptcy.

1994: Another powerhouse, the Lycos search engine, launches with 54,000 indexed documents. The Lycos search engine is still a player today, but it’s changed hands several times. Currently, it’s a subsidiary of the Korean-based Daum Communications Corporation.

1995: AltaVista explodes onto the scene. AltaVista (or AV) is the first search engine to include multilingual search capabilities. After changing hands several times, AltaVista becomes the property of Overture Services. (Overture is owned by Yahoo!, which we’ll discuss a bit later.) AltaVista maintains its status as the search king until the launch of Google.

1998: Larry Page and Sergey Brin introduce the world to Google, which quickly shoots to the top of the search engine rankings. (The name comes from the word googol, which is the name for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros.) Google’s database now includes trillions of Web pages, and most experts agree that Google enjoys greater than 50% of total search engine traffic. This means that a top Google ranking will yield more traffic to your site than a top ranking with any other search engine…period.

That’s where things stand now, with Google by far the most used search engine on the Web.

However, things change rapidly, with companies constantly buying, selling, and creating search engines. As a result, you’ll want to keep tabs on which search engines are gaining or losing popularity.

Search Engines versus Directories

Are you wondering why we didn’t talk about Yahoo! in the last section? That’s because Yahoo! began as a directory, not a search engine.

While search engines’ indexes are compiled by computers, directories are categorical lists of Web sites compiled by humans. Before it’s accepted, each Web site listed in a directory is carefully scrutinized and deemed acceptable for placement in one specific category.

Some people argue that because directories are compiled by humans, they’re limited because they don’t offer as many search results as search engines. However, I think you’ll find that the search results displayed by directories can often be much more useful than the search results displayed by search engines.

The most popular directory on the Web is Yahoo!, founded in 1994 by David Filo and Jerry Yang. They started Yahoo! on a couple of computers in a campus trailer at Stanford, initially using it to track their own interests. It surprised them by taking off quickly, and they incorporated it in 1995 with an initial investment of almost $2 million. By the way, Yahoo! Is an acronym for Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle-but I promise not to test you on that!

In an effort to diversify, Yahoo decided to use Google’s engine to supply users with primary search results. However, in 2004, Yahoo! unveiled its own brand-new search engine.

You can still tap into Yahoo!’s directory, and I think you’ll find it extremely useful at times. If you perform a search at http://www.yahoo.com, the results you’ll get are derived from the Yahoo Search Engine. However, you can obtain Yahoo Directory search results by initiating a search at http://dir.yahoo.com.

The Open Directory Project is perhaps the second most popular directory on the Web. It’s compiled by more than 50,000 volunteers who’ve indexed nearly 4 million Web sites. The directory contains just under 500,000 categories, all of which can be searched by keyword or category.

Due to the limited resources of the Open Directory, searching for results through their Web site can be time-consuming and cumbersome. However, some search engines include Open Directory listings within their secondary search results.

A Message From Chad & Steve: 2006

Ending months of speculation, in late 2006 Google finally revealed that they had bought online video site YouTube in a massive $1.65 billion stock transaction.

The Growth Continues: 2007

The year started with Google expanding into new territories once again, with Google Maps making its way to Australia and the Google Docs suite of tools being made available in several additional languages. Gmail was also made available to all, no longer requiring an invitation.

The biggest innovation from Google in 2007 was the addition of street level photography to Google Maps. Dubbed Street View, the service lets you view and explore a number of US locations at street level. Naturally, Street View’s introduction caused some controversy as it raised quite a few privacy concerns.

Popular search terms in 2007 included the iPhone, Facebook and Second Life. Since Google acquired YouTube in 2006, the popular video site has grown into an outright juggernaut: Even the Queen of England has her own YouTube channel.

Going Full Circle: 2008

Last year Google celebrated their tenth year in operation, and showed no signs of slowing down. The company released its first iPhone application, expanded Street View’s coverage to include a number of additional countries, revealed a new version of its Picasa photo management app, and launched Knol, a Wikipedia-type service.

In its biggest move of the year, Google announced that it would enter the browser wars with its own take on the humble web browser. The open source Google Chrome appeared in September of last year, and featured a minimalist interface and home page with shortcuts to frequently visited pages–features that have made their way into other browsers since then.

Later in the year, Google’s foray into software continued as the first ever cell phone to use Android, Google’s open-source mobile OS, hit the scene. ]]> http://ankitkumaragarwal.com/google-the-history-part-4/feed/ 1 http://ankitkumaragarwal.com/google-the-history-part-3/ http://ankitkumaragarwal.com/google-the-history-part-3/#comments Wed, 07 Oct 2009 05:47:14 +0000 Ankit Kumar Agarwal http://ankitkumaragarwal.com/?p=92

The Written Word: 2003

2003 was one verbose year for the search-engine giant. It began in February when Google acquired Pyra Labs, creators of the Blogger service, which allowed the masses to publish their thoughts online with ease. Soon after the acquisition, Google’s company name was announced as a recognized verb, to “google it” had become synonymous with search, however Google strived to steer clear of dictonaries and protect their strong brand.

In December the controversial Google Print was launched: Now known as Google Book Search, the service allows users to view excerpts from thousands of books in digital form. Classic books and their film adaptations, such as Lord Of The Rings and Harry Potter, were some of the most searched for terms on Google in 2003.

Email, Google Style: 2004

Without a doubt 2004 biggest Google news was the introduction of Gmail. The beta launched on April Fools Day, but Google made sure that Gmails was no joke, offering a then-unheard-of 1GB of storage along with a speedy user experience and the beauty of Google’s search technology built right in to your inbox. The service launched as a strictly invite-only affair, which resulted in an online gold rush of those hoping to land an invitation. After five years, Gmail finally disposed of its beta status early in June of 2009.

2004 also saw Google move to its Mountain View, California “Googleplex” headquarters, where the company still resides today. In addition, Google opened a research and development center in Tokyo and a European headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. With over three thousand employees, a range or products under its belt and over eight billion items in its search index Google’s growth continued to amaze.

Mapping The World: 2005

In 2005, Google’s ongoing effort to organize the world’s information continued as they released Google Maps. Since then, Google has continually improved the mapping service, adding new features such as satellite views and directions, as well as increasing the number of new searchable locations. Google Earth, a 3D satellite photography-based mapping application, soon followed, further complimenting Google’s range of location services.

2005 also saw the release of the iGoogle customizable home page, Google Reader RSS feed manager and Google Analytics. Optimized mobile versions of Gmail, Blogger, and Search were also released.

Oh, and could you imagine naming your newborn baby “Google”? It happened. ]]> http://ankitkumaragarwal.com/google-the-history-part-3/feed/ 0 http://ankitkumaragarwal.com/google-the-history-part2/ http://ankitkumaragarwal.com/google-the-history-part2/#comments Tue, 06 Oct 2009 05:37:55 +0000 Ankit Kumar Agarwal http://ankitkumaragarwal.com/?p=90

Growth & Expansion: 2000

2000 was a year of growth, as along with the search engine reaching a milestone of one billion pages indexed, the website also expanded to support over fifteen languages including Chinese, French, German, Japanese and more.

How things change. This year (2000) also saw Yahoo! reveal that they will be using Google as their default search provider. At the time this was a big deal, as Yahoo! was once one of the darlings of search, which Google had originally set their eyes on to compete with; mission accomplished? Of course today paints a very different picture as now both Yahoo! and Microsoft are collectively attempting to compete with the search giant that Google has become.

Before the year was out Google also found time to launch the immensely successful AdWords program, and their Toolbar browser plug-in. With the year drawing to a close it was pretty clear that the search engine was on a meteoric rise, as Google was now handling nearly 100 million search queries a day.

Going Global: 2001

With the search engine now available in over twenty-five languages, it only seemed right that the company would expand on a global level with the opening of its first international office in Tokyo. 2001 also saw Google hire ex-Novell chief executive Eric Schmidt, who started at Google as the Chairman of the Board, before quickly moving on to become the CEO.

With the Google search index approaching three billion webpages, it seemed the perfect time to tackle a new type of search: Images. Google launched its Image Search service in July, and initially had an index of over 250 million images.

Getting Geeky: 2002

2002 saw Google launch a range of new products, including the shopping tool Froogle, the experimental Google Labs, and the popular Google News service, a product of the company’s so-called “twenty percent time“. Geeky Google also decided to offer a Klingon translation of the site for all those Star Trek fans out there, bringing the total number of supports languages to over seventy. Spiderman, Warcraft 3 and pop star Shakira were amongst the most common search terms of the year. ]]> http://ankitkumaragarwal.com/google-the-history-part2/feed/ 0 http://ankitkumaragarwal.com/google-the-history-part1/ http://ankitkumaragarwal.com/google-the-history-part1/#comments Mon, 05 Oct 2009 05:21:39 +0000 Ankit Kumar Agarwal http://ankitkumaragarwal.com/?p=88 Google has come a long way in its eleven-year history, from its humble beginning as a Stanford University research project in 1998, to the global, multi-billion dollar online presence Google enjoys today.

Earlier this week, the company celebrated its 11th birthday and choose to mark the occasion with an all new Google Doodle, a fun take on their colorful identity. The unique logo illustrated Google’s eleven years in operation by adding an extra L to the company’s name to form a number eleven.

Google’s actual founding date is subject to debate. There are those who think that Google should bring out the cake on the September 4, the day in 1998 that Google filed its incorporation papers and officially became Google, Inc. Still others think that Google should recognize September 15, 1997 as its founding date, as that is when Google registered the google.com domain. But despite the debate, Google has celebrated its anniversary on September 27 for the past few years now, making the date somewhat official.

Any birthday offers the perfect opportunity to reflect on the past, so just what has Google been up to in the last eleven years?

Early Days: 1998

With 1997 behind them, founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin dropped the original BackRub moniker in favor of Google, a play on the mathematical term “googol“. With the Google.com domain registered and a healthy $100,000 investment from Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim, the two Stanford students rented out a $1,700 a month garage space in California’s Menlo Park.

With a makeshift office in place, Google made it official and filed for incorporation as “Google Technology Inc” on September 4, 1998. As the rest of year played out, Google began to receive positive support in the press, and the company also hired their first employee, Craig Silverstein.

Money And Moving: 1999

Thanks to its growing workforce, the fledgling company moved twice in 1999. Google outgrew its modest garage and relocated briefly to a more suitable location in Palo Alto. In June, the company released its very first press release, detailing how the firm had secured $25 million of funding.

During the second half of the year, as the company reached forty employees, Google moved once again to offices in Mountain View, with an in-house chef included. This year also saw Google drop the exclamation mark from their logo and settling with its now world-famous branding.

Kevin Mitnick: Known worldwide as the “most famous hacker” and for having been the first to serve a prison sentence for infiltrating computer systems. He started dabbling when he was a minor, using the practice known as phone phreaking. Although he has never worked in programming, Mitnick is totally convinced that you can cause severe damage with a telephone and some calls. These days, totally distanced from his old hobbies and after passing many years behind bars, he works as a security consultant for multinational companies through his company “Mitnick Security.”

Gary McKinnon: This 41-year-old Scotsman, also known as Solo, is the perpetrator of what’s considered the biggest hack in the history of computer science – into a military system. Not satisfied with this, in the years 2001 and 2002, he made a mockery of the information security of NASA itself and the Pentagon. Currently he is at liberty awarding his extradition to the U.S. and prohibited access to a computer with Internet connection.

Vladimir Levin: This Russian biochemist and mathematician was accused of having committed one of the biggest bank robberies of all times by means of the cracking technique. From Saint Petersburg, Levin managed to transfer funds estimated at approximately 10 million dollars from Citibank in New York to accounts he had opened in distant parts of the world. He was arrested by INTERPOL in 1995 at Heathrow airport (England). Although he managed to rob more than 10 million dollars, he was only sentenced to three years in prison. Currently he is free.

Kevin Poulsen: Today he may be a journalist and collaborates with authorities to track paedophiles on the Internet, but Poulsen has a dark past as a cracker and phreaker. The event that brought him the most notoriety was taking over Los Angeles phone lines in 1990. A radio station was offering a Porsche as a prize for whoever managed to be caller number 102. It goes without saying that Poulsen was the winner of the contest.

Timothy Lloyd: In 1996, information services company Omega, provider of NASA and the United States Navy, suffered losses of around 10 million dollars. And it was none other than Tim Lloyd, an x-employee fired some weeks earlier, who was the cause of this financial disaster. Lloyd left a virtually activated information bomb in the company’s codes, which finally detonated July 31 of that same year.

Robert Morris: Son of one of the forerunners in the creation of the virus, in 1988 Morris managed to infect no fewer than 6,000 computers connected to the ArpaNet network (one of the precursors to the internet) He did it from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and for his criminal activities he earned a four year prison sentence, which was finally reduced to community service.

David Smith: Not all hackers can boast of creating the virus that spread the fastest to computers the width and breadth of the globe – David Smith can. In 1999, the father of the Melissa virus managed to infect and crash 100,000 email accounts with his malicious creation. Smith, who was thirty years old at the time, was sentenced and freed on bail.

MafiaBoy: In February of 2000, many of the most important online companies in the US, such as eBay, Yahoo and Amazon, suffered a technical glitch called Denial of Service, which caused a total of 1700 million dollars in losses. But did these sites know that the perpetrator of the attack was a 16 year-old Canadian who responded to the alias MafiaBoy? Surely not, although it didn’t take them long to find out, thanks to his bragging about his bad deed to his classmates at school.

Masters of Deception (MoD): MoD was a New York cyber-gang that reached its apogee in the early 90s. Under the cover of different aliases, its biggest attacks involved taking over telephone lines and centres of the Internet, then still in its infancy. During this time McD starred in the historic “battles of the hackers,” along with other groups like the Legion of Doom (LoD), as they sought to destroy each other until the computers couldn’t take it anymore.

Richard Stallman: Since the early 80s when he was a hacker specializing in artificial intelligence, this hippie-looking New Yorker has been one of the most active militants in favour of free software. At MIT he firmly opposed the privatization of the software used by the institute’s laboratory, so much so they he created what today is known as GNU and the concept of CopyLeft. Popular systems like Linux utilize the GNU mode and Stallman is currently one of the gurus of software democratization.

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