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I still remember the day when I read the Slashdot article announcing this new incredible search engine called Google. I was an AltaVista user at the time, along

I still remember the day when I read the Slashdot article announcing this new incredible search engine called Google. I was an AltaVista user at the time, along with most IT professionals, and for those who don't know, it essentially had its own search query language. The claim was Google returned back even better results WITHOUT having to specify all those query parameters. I tried it - it was unbelievable! A simple search box, type in your keyword(s) you're interested in, no query syntax and - voila! Good, relevant results! It was simply amazing! AltaVista essentially died overnight. But really, Google's biggest technology was AdSense. It's how they make their money. It's why all their other services, save for gmail and google docs, have come and gone. Search has become less and less relevant in today's world. But there was a time when it seemed magical!

0xcde4c3db 3y ago
> But really, Google's biggest technology was AdSense. In my more cynical moments, I feel like people got it backwards: DoubleClick acquired Google.
- kridsdale2 3y ago
  Not as far as who the two majority voting shareholders are.
hotpotamus 3y ago
I think I was in a middle school computer lab (could have been high school) when one of the other students said, "hey, you should try this new search engine out, it has millions of sites and works really well". And it did - this comment brings me back.
dekhn 3y ago
Yep, me too- I remember reading about Google (actually a friend read the article and told me I'd like it because they ran on Linux). At the time, AltaVista would often take 30 seconds and then time out, or return pages of spammy results, while Google was super-fast and accurate.
aikinai 3y ago
Somehow I still remember the moment my mom showed me a little blurb in the computer column of our newspaper that mentioned Google! Same as everyone, I tried it and switched immediately.
hyperthesis 3y ago
The basic ad auction idea came from goto.com/Overture https://publishing2.scottkarp.ai/2008/05/27/google-adwords-a-brief-history-of-online-advertising-innovation/ https://publishing2.scottkarp.ai/2008/05/27/google-adwords-a... Strangely difficult to find info on this.
- water-your-self 3y ago
  When you say "find info on this" do you happen to be using Google Search?
  - hyperthesis 3y ago
    yes, but also bing and ddg. If obscured, it's via whitewashing not result manipulation.
dharmab 3y ago
When my older sister was an elementary school student, a teacher in the computer lab berated her for using Google instead of AltaVista like the assignment wanted. That was an eye-opening moment for her that she remembers today.
- paradox460 3y ago
  I had teachers scold me for not using everything from AltaVista to Yahoo
  - dharmab 3y ago
    Wow, I just recognized you from your username- we hung out a bit in 2010 ish at the U. How you doing man?
    - paradox460 3y ago
      Doing well. Moved back here a few years ago and got a family going. Life is pretty good haha
      - dharmab 3y ago
        Good to hear, I bought a house here as well. You can find my contact info through the website on my profile, let's get lunch sometime.
AlbertCory 3y ago
Search ads are called AdWords.
bigger_cheese 3y ago
In the Pre-google days of the internet you used to have to play "search engine bingo" to find useful results I remember jumping between Lycos, Metacrawler, Altavista and Infoseek and it was still a coin flip if you would get useful results. Search engines used to require you to use Boolean operators "+" "AND" "OR" "NOT" to filter search results. My high school library had a laminated card next to the internet connected PC (via dial up modem) explaining how Boolean operators worked and with suggested search engines to use (this was around 1996/1997). The eye opener to me was my high school class was given an assignment to write about the upcoming "G8 Summit", Russia had just joined the G7 creating the G8 and it was a big news story at the time. I can remember how frustrating it was to find any results searching for things required constructing strings like "G+8+Summit OR Group+of+8+Summit"etc in sites like infoseek and still getting nonsense results. I found the information I needed to complete the assignment by going to public library which had copies of various daily newspapers archived I basically quoted newspaper articles to complete the assignment and concluded the internet was useless for finding information. I complained about my situation at home and my Dad Casually mentioned have you tried "google.com" next ay at school I typed "G8 Summit" into google and immediately got relevant results. I was a convert to google immediately it was so far ahead of every other search engine at the time it was like night and day.
- coryrc 3y ago
  > complained about my situation at home and my Dad Casually mentioned have you tried "google.com" God damn I wish I had any mentorship at all when I was a kid, just anybody who knew about computers.
  - bigger_cheese 3y ago
    I was pretty fortunate. My Dad was a veterinarian who taught himself to program (in Pascal) he knew a lot about a certain era of computing - early 90's MS-DOS 386 era PC's. His tech skills kind of atrophied and stagnated he never really adopted to the Win 9x gui first era of computing but he still had his ear to the ground enough to tip me off about google.
  - jj999 3y ago
mark_l_watson 3y ago
re: “It's why all their other services, save for gmail and google docs, have come and gone.” I am still bitter they cancelled Google Wave, and then the cool Apache open source version stopped being supported. A lot of our digital lives fades away when Google and other companies sunset products. I am mostly OK with that, since new stuff gets developed also. We control our own personal domains and web sites, our own writing, and our code. I can live with enjoying tech Google, Microsoft, Meta, etc. produce, hopefully without having strong dependencies on any of it.
- xmcqdpt2 3y ago
  I made fun of Google Wave a lot at the time because it wasn't clear what it was for. (Is it chat? Authoring? Google+?) Eventually one of my friends forced me to try it and ... it was the coolest thing! It worked so well! I used it for note taking and collaboration but not for long because it was cancelled basically immediately.
omgmajk 3y ago
Sometimes I feel like I am the only person who dropped Altavista for Northern Lights before Google burst onto the scene. I can't even remember if it's a local thing or where they were located but they always had better results than Altavista (in my memory).
- dizhn 3y ago
  I was using alltheweb after Altavista. I don't actually remember it as google being so much better but it had the short goofy name and I found myself going to it more. Also it had a fast clean homepage. I think the actual improvements came later. I also remember telling people "No, google is not your friend" before 2007, though I don't remember why now.

0xcde4c3db 3y ago

> But really, Google's biggest technology was AdSense. In my more cynical moments, I feel like people got it backwards: DoubleClick acquired Google.

kridsdale2 3y ago
Not as far as who the two majority voting shareholders are.

hotpotamus 3y ago

I think I was in a middle school computer lab (could have been high school) when one of the other students said, "hey, you should try this new search engine out, it has millions of sites and works really well". And it did - this comment brings me back.

dekhn 3y ago

Yep, me too- I remember reading about Google (actually a friend read the article and told me I'd like it because they ran on Linux). At the time, AltaVista would often take 30 seconds and then time out, or return pages of spammy results, while Google was super-fast and accurate.

aikinai 3y ago

Somehow I still remember the moment my mom showed me a little blurb in the computer column of our newspaper that mentioned Google! Same as everyone, I tried it and switched immediately.

hyperthesis 3y ago

The basic ad auction idea came from goto.com/Overture https://publishing2.scottkarp.ai/2008/05/27/google-adwords-a-brief-history-of-online-advertising-innovation/ https://publishing2.scottkarp.ai/2008/05/27/google-adwords-a... Strangely difficult to find info on this.

water-your-self 3y ago
When you say "find info on this" do you happen to be using Google Search?
- hyperthesis 3y ago
  yes, but also bing and ddg. If obscured, it's via whitewashing not result manipulation.

dharmab 3y ago

When my older sister was an elementary school student, a teacher in the computer lab berated her for using Google instead of AltaVista like the assignment wanted. That was an eye-opening moment for her that she remembers today.

paradox460 3y ago
I had teachers scold me for not using everything from AltaVista to Yahoo
- dharmab 3y ago
  Wow, I just recognized you from your username- we hung out a bit in 2010 ish at the U. How you doing man?
  - paradox460 3y ago
    Doing well. Moved back here a few years ago and got a family going. Life is pretty good haha
    - dharmab 3y ago
      Good to hear, I bought a house here as well. You can find my contact info through the website on my profile, let's get lunch sometime.

AlbertCory 3y ago

Search ads are called AdWords.

bigger_cheese 3y ago

In the Pre-google days of the internet you used to have to play "search engine bingo" to find useful results I remember jumping between Lycos, Metacrawler, Altavista and Infoseek and it was still a coin flip if you would get useful results. Search engines used to require you to use Boolean operators "+" "AND" "OR" "NOT" to filter search results. My high school library had a laminated card next to the internet connected PC (via dial up modem) explaining how Boolean operators worked and with suggested search engines to use (this was around 1996/1997). The eye opener to me was my high school class was given an assignment to write about the upcoming "G8 Summit", Russia had just joined the G7 creating the G8 and it was a big news story at the time. I can remember how frustrating it was to find any results searching for things required constructing strings like "G+8+Summit OR Group+of+8+Summit"etc in sites like infoseek and still getting nonsense results. I found the information I needed to complete the assignment by going to public library which had copies of various daily newspapers archived I basically quoted newspaper articles to complete the assignment and concluded the internet was useless for finding information. I complained about my situation at home and my Dad Casually mentioned have you tried "google.com" next ay at school I typed "G8 Summit" into google and immediately got relevant results. I was a convert to google immediately it was so far ahead of every other search engine at the time it was like night and day.

coryrc 3y ago
> complained about my situation at home and my Dad Casually mentioned have you tried "google.com" God damn I wish I had any mentorship at all when I was a kid, just anybody who knew about computers.
- bigger_cheese 3y ago
  I was pretty fortunate. My Dad was a veterinarian who taught himself to program (in Pascal) he knew a lot about a certain era of computing - early 90's MS-DOS 386 era PC's. His tech skills kind of atrophied and stagnated he never really adopted to the Win 9x gui first era of computing but he still had his ear to the ground enough to tip me off about google.
- jj999 3y ago

mark_l_watson 3y ago

re: “It's why all their other services, save for gmail and google docs, have come and gone.” I am still bitter they cancelled Google Wave, and then the cool Apache open source version stopped being supported. A lot of our digital lives fades away when Google and other companies sunset products. I am mostly OK with that, since new stuff gets developed also. We control our own personal domains and web sites, our own writing, and our code. I can live with enjoying tech Google, Microsoft, Meta, etc. produce, hopefully without having strong dependencies on any of it.

xmcqdpt2 3y ago
I made fun of Google Wave a lot at the time because it wasn't clear what it was for. (Is it chat? Authoring? Google+?) Eventually one of my friends forced me to try it and ... it was the coolest thing! It worked so well! I used it for note taking and collaboration but not for long because it was cancelled basically immediately.

omgmajk 3y ago

Sometimes I feel like I am the only person who dropped Altavista for Northern Lights before Google burst onto the scene. I can't even remember if it's a local thing or where they were located but they always had better results than Altavista (in my memory).

dizhn 3y ago
I was using alltheweb after Altavista. I don't actually remember it as google being so much better but it had the short goofy name and I found myself going to it more. Also it had a fast clean homepage. I think the actual improvements came later. I also remember telling people "No, google is not your friend" before 2007, though I don't remember why now.