The Search Engines

Ask.com

Ask.com is a search engine started in 1996 by Garrett Gruener and David Warthen in Berkeley,California. The original software was implemented by Gary Chevsky from his own design. Three venture capital firms,Highland Capital Partner, Institutional Venture Partners, and The RODA Group were early investors.Ask.com is currently owned by InterActive Corp.

Ask.com was originally known as Ask Jeeves, where "Jeeves" is the name of the "gentleman's personal gentleman", or valet (illustrated by Marcos Sorensen), fetching answers to any question asked. The character was based on Jeeves, Bertie Wooster fictional valet from the works of P.G. Woodhouse.

The original idea behind Ask Jeeves was to allow users to get answers to questions posed in everyday, natural language. It supports a variety of user queries in plain English, as well as traditional keyword searching.

HotBot, owned by Terra/Lycos, is one of older Web search engines. Originally it just used the Inktomi database and then added Derict hit and the Open directory. Then in Dec. 2002, it relaunched as a multiple search engine with Inktomi, Fast, Google, and Teoma. In July 2003, they stayed with the same four databases, but renamed them HotBot, Lycos, Google, and Ask Jeeves. Lycos was dropped in March 2004. This review covers HotBot using the Inktomi database, which they now call "HotBot." See the GooGle and Teoma (Ask Jeeves) reviews for more details on how their database and interface work, bearing in mind that not all features are available at HotBot. The basic search screen shows no options, but choose Advanced Search for the full range of search features. To see how HotBot used to work, see the old search engine showdown review. Use the table of content on the left to navigate this review.

HotBot offers the choice of three search engine databases:

• HotBot (which is actually a Yahoo!/Inktomi database, and the version reviewed here)
• Google
• Ask Jeeves (the Teoma database)

HotBot is one of the early Internet search engine and was launched in May 1996 as a service of Wired magazine. It was launched using a "new links" strategy of marketing, claiming to update its search database more often than its competitors. It also offered free webpage hosting, but only for a short time, and it was taken down without any notice to its users. Though competitive when it was acquired by Lycosin 1998, HotBot has in recent years reduced its scope. Today the website is merely a front end for third-party search enginesYaHoo, and MSN, as well as Lycos' own lyGo.com. It was one of the first search engines to offer the ability to search within search results. The site still exists, however it is run by Yahoo! mainly.

Lycos

In October Lycos began as a search engine research project by Dr Micheal Loren Mauldin of Carnegie Mellon University in 1994. Bob Davis joined the company as its CEO and first employee in 1995. Lycos then enjoyed several years of growth and in 1999 became the most visited online destination in the world with a global presence in more than 40 countries. Lycos was sold to Terra Networks of Spain in May 2000 for $5.4 billion forming a new company Terra Lycos and maintaining a position as one of the world's largest Internet companies. Shortly after the merger Davis left the company to become a venture capitalist with HighLand capital partners in Boston. 2004 Lycos was sold by Terra's parent company Telefonica to Daum Communication Corporation the second largest Internet portal in Korea becoming once again Lycos Inc.

(Lycos, Inc., Waltham, MA, www.lycos.com. One of the major Web search and content sites on the Web. In 2000, Lycos and Terra Networks, S.A., the leading provider of content and Internet access to the Spanish and Portuguese markets, merged to become Terra Lycos.

In early 2004, the company restructured and redirected itself from portal status to become a vast social network and online community. This so-called Lycos, Inc. division, based in the U.S., was sold in October of 2004 to Daum Communications Corporation, the leading Internet site in Korea. Acquired in the transaction were the flagship Lycos.com and its specialty sites that include tripod.com, angelfire.com and hotbot.com.