It is precisely as you say: Simple as that. You knew of some sites, and you had links from those sites to others. Beyond that, you could take some big names and

It is precisely as you say: Simple as that. You knew of some sites, and you had links from those sites to others. Beyond that, you could take some big names and guess if they had a site. As for your "working internals of a car engine" example, in 1995 I would have instead cracked open a physical encyclopedia at a library. It really was the rise of search engines that helped grant the internet that "Learn/find anything about anything" aura. All I remember interacting with until about 1997 was a handful of consumer brand's websites, the brands for which I already knew of and could easily guess their domain name.