Page:Untangling the Web.pdf/21

 In the early years of the Internet, there was enormous competition in the search market among a large number of search engines vying not only for users but, more importantly, for investors. The "dot bomb" crash in mid-2000 began the shakeout of search companies that continues to this day. The biggest change wrought by the failure of so many Internet-based investments was the growth of pay-per-click advertising in search results. Pioneered by Overture, these so-called sponsored results began to show up at the top of search result lists: the more an advertiser was willing to pay, the higher his result on the list. Then, in 2002 the big search engine consolidation began: first, Yahoo purchased Inktomi, a little known but major player in the search engine world. In 2005, Overture bought AltaVista, one of the oldest and most venerable search engines on the Internet, then quickly acquired AlltheWeb, another major search engine. To top it off, in July 2003, Yahoo bought Overture,thus acquiring three huge search properties at one time.

All this was done publicly. The real revolution was what was happening behind the scenes: with a remarkable degree of secrecy, Yahoo gave the engineers it had acquired from AltaVista, AlltheWeb, and Inktomi a new task-create a whole new search engine to compete with Google. On February 18, 2004, Yahoo unveiled its new search engine, which has a database and search features to rival Google's. Shortly thereafter, Yahoo began killing off the "parents" of its new progeny: first Inktomi, then AlltheWeb and AltaVista. While users can still go to the AlltheWeb and AltaVista websites and run searches, the results are pulled from the Yahoo database and many of the unique search options and features of both search engines are no longer available. However, Yahoo continues to add new features and options that are improving its capabilities.

During 2006, two major search engines unveiled major changes that make them serious contenders: and. During 2006 Teoma and Ask Jeeves ceased to exist as separate search sites and merged under the Ask.com umbrella. The French search engine Exalead came out of beta for a new look and major overhaul during 2006 and continues to offer a number of important and unique search features. MSN Search became, which left beta status in September 2006 and increased the much-needed competition from a company that knows how to make successful (if imperfect) products. Amazon.com still offers its own search engine,, although during 2006, Amazon eliminated some of A9's unique functions, switched from Google to Live Search to power web searches , and appeared to be if not abandoning A9 then certainly scaling it back.

All the major search sites are still trying to be the "Swiss army knife" of search engines. Google, Yahoo, Live Search, Ask, and Exalead all competed hotly with each other to roll out new, better, faster, fancier, more powerful tools to do everything from search the contents of your computer in a heartbeat to letting you "fly" around the world with a bird's (or satellite's) eye view of the planet. Among the new search engine-based tools and programs arriving this past year were vastly improved maps and mapping technologies, enhanced multimedia search, desktop Rh