Before Google
Head to https://squarespace.com/nostalgianerd to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code NOSTALGIANERD ~ Google, Google, Google. It’s the place MOST of us go to when we need to search the web, these days. But back in the 90s, there were many search engines to choose from, and the choice was not always obvious. In this video, I look at the glory days of search, when AltaVista, Lycos, Excite!, Ask Jeeves, DogPile, InfoSeek and MSN were just some of the choices available. Such exciting times.
You can view the web version of this video, with references at https://www.nostalgianerd.com/when-searching-was-exciting/
⌚Timings⌚
00:00-06:27 Early days of search
06:27-07:12 SqSp
07:12-16:13 Search Engines in the 90s
16:13-21:45 Search Engines in the 00s
21:45-22:56 Search Engines up to now
22:56-23:28 Credits
🔗Video Links🔗
AltaVista advert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md6dNP45vFM
Excite! advert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZB3nqQSeA0
MSN advert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UFNCdhyjbA
Yahoo! Dolphin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmSG8DAPF8w
Yahoo! Fishing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXgaUod1rCs
NetCafe: https://archive.org/details/Newwebsi01
Search Engine Content: https://www.muzeuminternetu.cz/videos/
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@LeChuck1717
January 4, 2026 at 12:15 pm
I actually used nearly every single one mentioned here. Webcrawler, Infoseek, Lycos, Yahoo, Altavista, Ask, Excite, HotBot, Metacrawler. Also i loved the Web-Rings back then. So fun to explore. But Google and others did indeed make it better, its not the fault of web search that the internet got so capitalist and fucked up as it is now.
@Mordecrox
January 4, 2026 at 12:15 pm
16:31 Meat jumpscare
@chrissy6478
January 4, 2026 at 12:15 pm
"back rub*whoever came up with that name!? Imagine a world where instead of saying "Google'd" one would say "rubbed one out. " -It'd have a completely different meaning;
@MagikGimp
January 4, 2026 at 12:15 pm
What a chenge.
@sonuvabitch
January 4, 2026 at 12:15 pm
My dad used webcrawler from about 96 till he died in 2023. He used Google at times but stuck with what he knew. He also thought he internet would be dead by 98 too so….
I used to use Webcrawler and then Metacrawler before switching to Google in about 99. Starting to move away from Google now as it's just getting too bloated with ads and bad results these days. Also moving away from Chrome as its now a resource hog and refusing access to unlock origin. Duckduckgo is pretty good and Firefox is back in my life again as it still supports the Extensions I use.
@ssbeebs
January 4, 2026 at 12:15 pm
google is a Joke just gives you who pays them the Most for the Search…. nothing more nothing less !
@grantr5417
January 4, 2026 at 12:15 pm
We used a search engine called inFind, or inference find. It was basic and powerful. Some rumored it was the beginning of Google, but have never found anyone who has used it?
@connyfucks
January 4, 2026 at 12:15 pm
Great video. Free Palestine
@Abdullahs_World
January 4, 2026 at 12:15 pm
Thank You for great video
@SomeKindOfSpy
January 4, 2026 at 12:15 pm
Oh hey maybe a cool vid…Squarespace mention…backs out and puts channel on "do not recommend"
@tlniec
January 4, 2026 at 12:15 pm
I grew up at just the right time to experience all this as it happened… it really can't be overstated just how different the internet is now than it was 25-30 years ago.
FWIW, my top-5 order of preference up until mid-1998 was Altavista / Infoseek / Yahoo / Webcrawler / Lycos. By the end of 1998, I was pretty much all-in on Google, with occasional hits on Altavista / Infoseek / Yahoo on the rare occasion that Google results didn't do the trick.
@Nodsaibot
January 4, 2026 at 12:15 pm
shared hosting wont get your website ranked, that includes web services like squarespace 😉
@paulanderson7796
January 4, 2026 at 12:15 pm
I hate the way 'Google' has become a verb. I used Lycos and Altavista in the mid nineties. I avoid Google completely. My search engine today is Yandex. I also avoid Apple and anything Microsoft. No Windows in this house.
@BaileyMagikz
January 4, 2026 at 12:15 pm
You won't find us on Alta Vista
Cult classic, not bestseller (The Streets – Lets Push Things Foward)
@caio5987
January 4, 2026 at 12:15 pm
I vividly remember seeing Google for the first time in 1999 and thinking “what another one of these search engines?”
😂
@easyplayer7453
January 4, 2026 at 12:15 pm
Alta Vista was great!
@Sb129
January 4, 2026 at 12:15 pm
I'm kinda back to the original days, i have my sites i visit often, if i need some specific info then 'Googling' something just gives me a Plebbit link more often than not.
There are no individual forums, there are no fan sites, there are no personal websites anymore unless they survived.
If i want info from people i usually need to join some obscure Discord just like joining an IRC chan.
A 'search engine' just can't do today what it used to in the past. The Internet at large is just way to consolidated now.
@LoftBits
January 4, 2026 at 12:15 pm
I remember comparing Yahoo and Altavista with some obscure searches, around mid-90s. Altavista won. ('google' at that time would be a misspelled ski eyewear…)
Oh, and I still used GOPHER at that time – even had a GUI client on my OS/2 Warp! 🙂
@GamingDreamer
January 4, 2026 at 12:15 pm
2:36 This is word i never heard for so long
Also web circle
@AndrewPonti
January 4, 2026 at 12:15 pm
As a 37 year old… this brought SO much back… remember learning in computer class about all of this and how to become computer and internet literate in search engines and whatnot. What a time. Also …. the CEO of EXCITE KICKING himself for a sub-1 million dollar purchase of Google back then….
@BenjyDale
January 4, 2026 at 12:15 pm
Great content! I got online in 1998 and I remember the multitude of search engines. You could use plain English in Ask Jeeves like with Google but Ask was a few years ahead. Fond memories of MSN and the MSN Gaming Zone as well. The internet remained "decent" until 2007 as it was used mainly by enthusiasts. YouTube was still around back then. However, I found that the likes of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter diluted the internet experience for me, and I despise the term "social media"
@aortaplatinum
January 4, 2026 at 12:15 pm
Early search engines, even up through the early 2000s, were so confusing for my kid brain that I tried to never use them. I'd just enter the URL of my favorite websites that I'd memorized and go straight to them, until I found the favorites/bookmarks feature in Internet Explorer
@AlfredC2002
January 4, 2026 at 12:15 pm
Nice video!
@octap79
January 4, 2026 at 12:15 pm
"….believe it or not"…..google search is already obsolete…
@alexknox814
January 4, 2026 at 12:15 pm
From the great before, my fridge didnt always get emails and nazdac stock exchange prices om it at night
@pellingt
January 4, 2026 at 12:15 pm
12:00 somewhere around this moment in history, you actually needed a search engine to find search engines. Dogpile was very handy for this.
@sandylotion
January 4, 2026 at 12:15 pm
this is refreshing! i was always a hotbot user, i loved hotbot til it became too obsolote
@zvndmvn
January 4, 2026 at 12:15 pm
It blows my mind that AskJeeves hasn't rebranded as an AI assistant.
@Tyler-ww6jp
January 4, 2026 at 12:15 pm
I find that once a corporation (like Google, Meta, Youtube, etc) becomes a dominant market leader, they suck the life out of what made their products great and provide us with curated, sponsored nonsense to the extent that it divides the globe. They also supress anything that doesn't fit their narrative. One example is censorship during the g€n●¿|d& of 2023-present. Y'all know the one
@SupportIsraelLGBTQ
January 4, 2026 at 12:15 pm
Google is a monopoly and needs to be sold off. Android should be open source, and the browser should be separate also
@AaronJonesMagic
January 4, 2026 at 12:15 pm
Ahh the good old days
Comments are closed.