Search Engine Journal

Bambi Francisco at CBS MarketWatch put together an excellent historical timeline of search engines going for the gold in the search commerce field.

1996: Search goes public
(all IPOs are split-adjusted prices. Source: Dealogic)

Jan. 1996: Google founders collaborate on search engine called BackRub

April 1, 1996: Lycos goes public at $4 a share

April 4, 1996: Excite goes public at $8.50 a share

April 11, 1996: Yahoo prices at $1.83.

1998 and 1999: New batch of search engines go public and Google is born

1998: Google opens its doors (answers 10,000 search queries Oct. 7, 1998)

June 1998: Inktomi goes public at $4.15 (market cap at IPO was $370 million)

December 1998: InfoSpace (INSP) goes public at $15

May 1999: Excite merges with At Home for $6.5 billion

June 1999: GoTo.com goes public at $15. Company changes name eventually to Overture Services.

June 1999: Ask Jeeves (ASKJ) goes public at $14

August 1999: LookSmart (LOOK) goes public at $12

August 1999: CMGI buys 83 percent of Alta Vista for $2.3 billion in stock, plus bonds

2000 and 2001: More consolidation and bankruptcy

Oct. 30, 2000: Terra Networks (TRLY) buys Lycos for $46.40 per share, or $5.1 billion.

Sept. 28, 2001: ExciteAtHome goes bankrupt. See story.

2002: Back to search roots

Nov. 13, 2002: Alta Vista relaunches its search site.

December 2002: Yahoo says it’ll buy Inktomi for $233 million in cash.

2003: Google accelerates position and portal expansion; Microsoft launches Web crawler; Search gets deeper

March 2003: Google surpasses Yahoo in searches with 1.1 million searches. (source: comScore)

March 4, 2003: Ask Jeeves says it’s buying Interactive Search Holdings for $343 million. See full story.

March 11, 2003: Yahoo’s maps meet Yellow Pages See Yahoo local

March 29, 2003: Google’s Froogle launched See Google’s Froogle.

April 7, 2003: Yahoo revamps its search functionalities. See Yahoo returns to search roots.

April 21, 2003: Ask Jeeves unveils its new look. See Ask Jeeves’ search gets smarter.

April 28, 2003: Overture completes purchase of Alta Vista for $106 million stock and cash

June 19, 2003: Microsoft tests its own Web crawler. See full story.

July 1, 2003: MSN to recast search to make algorithmic searches more prominent. See MSN to recast search.

Oct. 7, 2003: Yahoo completes purchase of Overture for $2.2 bln in stock and cash.

2004: Google’s long awaited IPO

April 29, 2004: Google announces it’ll try to raise $2.7 billion through an IPO, offering shares in a Dutch auction. See full story.

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