Before Google, most of the search engines had flashy banners or popup windows for their adverts. At least that was obvious though... Going back a bit further,

Before Google, most of the search engines had flashy banners or popup windows for their adverts. At least that was obvious though... Going back a bit further, web directories charged more to be at the top. And before that the way you found a business was through Yellow Pages, which was pretty much just ads.