What do search engine names mean?
What does google mean? Do I need to fear Inktomi? Here is a small excursion into the history of the emergence and meaning of the names of the main search engines.
The names of search engines can be divided into three categories. Some, like AlltheWeb and Infoseek, are functional names. Others, such as Teoma, borrow words from other languages. The third category is services with colorful or stupid names.
AlltheWeb has gone from its original mission of its creator, the Norwegian company FAST Search and Transfer, - providing a full index of sites.
AltaVista translates from Spanish as "a view from a height." The search engine was launched in 1995 as a subdomain of the Digital Equipment website - www.altavista.digital.comi . As the server grows in popularity, many users began to search for its address, but at the same time they got on the Alta Vista Technology, Incorporated (ATI) corporate page, which registered the altavista.com domain in 1994.
Digital has long fought ATI and even went to court with a claim to transfer the site to its property. In 1998, the new owner of Digital, Compaq, resolved all disputes by buying out ownership of the altavista.com domain for $ 3.3 million.
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Ask Jeeves. The basic idea when creating Jeeves was not the birth of another search engine or directory service, the creators wanted to organize something like a reference service - a virtual network telephonist. Accordingly, the service was named after the hero P. G. Wadhaus (Wodehouse) - butler Jeeves.
The company was sued by the literary agent A.P.Wott / in charge of Wadhaus’s legacy / for neglect of copyrights. The parties have reached an agreement that remains hidden from the public.
Google is a derivative of googol, a mathematical term for a unit with one hundred zeros. As Google himself notes, there is no Google in the whole universe. Fortunately for the Google public relations team, this name has replaced the previously used “Backrub” option (something like “lapping”).
HotBot is based on a site search technology used by other engines (the so-called “crawlers” - crawlers). The first such programs were known as "network robots" or "bots," because they were autonomous. Such programs seemed to make their way online. HotBot was created by Wired, and its name fits well with the gloomy image of the company.
Inktomi is derived from the legend of the Lakota Indians of a cunning spider-like creature who defeated their opponents with the help of wit and resourcefulness. Another variation of the crawler technology, which is also known as spiders.
LookSmart is a thing in itself, a selective, edited catalog plus a perfect option for users who prefer intellectual exercises (“LookSmart” - “Look smart”).
Lycos is named after Lycosides, the Latin name for wolf spiders. Unlike most spiders, who passively wait for prey in the web, wolf spiders actively hunt for their prey.
As Lycos commercialized at the end of the 90s, the development of this “spider” faded, so in December 1999 the search engine began to replenish its index with information provided by FAST. In the fall of 2001, Lycos completely abandoned its own spider and began publishing results exclusively from FAST databases, while retaining the original name.
Although the name of the Open Directory Project is unlikely to cause colorful associations, its original name was more attractive. The project was called NewHoo (or GnuHoo - a step towards the open source community from the creators of the directory service), then was renamed after the service was bought up by Netscape, escaping the pressure of Yahoo. Yahoo lawyers felt that the original name of the search engine was too much like their own.
Now the Open Directory is usually called by initials - ODP.
Overture changed its name to GoTo on October 8, 2001. “Overture is an introduction, and that’s what our company does. We also felt that it was too complicated a word to promote our products on the market, ”said GoTO Executive Director Jaynie Studenmund, hinting at the acquisition of AlltheWeb and AltaVista in 2003.
GoTo has even more ancient roots. The original search engine for the company was the World Wide Web Worm (the “Network Worm”), one of the first search engines on the web, created by Professor Oliver McBryan, a professor at the University of Colorado. McBrien sold the technology to Idealab, which then organized GoTo.com in December 1999. Teoma means “knowledgeable, expert” in Gallic, which should emphasize the site’s analytical capabilities in a local search, as well as a section of search results called “Resources: collections of links for experts and lovers. "
Yahoo! was launched as the “key to the World Wide Web by Jerry” named after service co-founder Jerry Yang. The very word Yahoo! - This is an acronym meaning "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle" ("Another unofficial soothsayer"), but Young and the second co-founder David Filo (David Filo), apparently looking at the word in the dictionary, insist on the following decoding of Yahoo! - “coarse, unsophisticated, uncouth”. Today, Yang and Filo call themselves “Chief Yahoo”.
Infu got out of the old archives, because the links can not share.
The names of search engines can be divided into three categories. Some, like AlltheWeb and Infoseek, are functional names. Others, such as Teoma, borrow words from other languages. The third category is services with colorful or stupid names.
AlltheWeb has gone from its original mission of its creator, the Norwegian company FAST Search and Transfer, - providing a full index of sites.
AltaVista translates from Spanish as "a view from a height." The search engine was launched in 1995 as a subdomain of the Digital Equipment website - www.altavista.digital.comi . As the server grows in popularity, many users began to search for its address, but at the same time they got on the Alta Vista Technology, Incorporated (ATI) corporate page, which registered the altavista.com domain in 1994.
Digital has long fought ATI and even went to court with a claim to transfer the site to its property. In 1998, the new owner of Digital, Compaq, resolved all disputes by buying out ownership of the altavista.com domain for $ 3.3 million.
')
Ask Jeeves. The basic idea when creating Jeeves was not the birth of another search engine or directory service, the creators wanted to organize something like a reference service - a virtual network telephonist. Accordingly, the service was named after the hero P. G. Wadhaus (Wodehouse) - butler Jeeves.
The company was sued by the literary agent A.P.Wott / in charge of Wadhaus’s legacy / for neglect of copyrights. The parties have reached an agreement that remains hidden from the public.
Google is a derivative of googol, a mathematical term for a unit with one hundred zeros. As Google himself notes, there is no Google in the whole universe. Fortunately for the Google public relations team, this name has replaced the previously used “Backrub” option (something like “lapping”).
HotBot is based on a site search technology used by other engines (the so-called “crawlers” - crawlers). The first such programs were known as "network robots" or "bots," because they were autonomous. Such programs seemed to make their way online. HotBot was created by Wired, and its name fits well with the gloomy image of the company.
Inktomi is derived from the legend of the Lakota Indians of a cunning spider-like creature who defeated their opponents with the help of wit and resourcefulness. Another variation of the crawler technology, which is also known as spiders.
LookSmart is a thing in itself, a selective, edited catalog plus a perfect option for users who prefer intellectual exercises (“LookSmart” - “Look smart”).
Lycos is named after Lycosides, the Latin name for wolf spiders. Unlike most spiders, who passively wait for prey in the web, wolf spiders actively hunt for their prey.
As Lycos commercialized at the end of the 90s, the development of this “spider” faded, so in December 1999 the search engine began to replenish its index with information provided by FAST. In the fall of 2001, Lycos completely abandoned its own spider and began publishing results exclusively from FAST databases, while retaining the original name.
Although the name of the Open Directory Project is unlikely to cause colorful associations, its original name was more attractive. The project was called NewHoo (or GnuHoo - a step towards the open source community from the creators of the directory service), then was renamed after the service was bought up by Netscape, escaping the pressure of Yahoo. Yahoo lawyers felt that the original name of the search engine was too much like their own.
Now the Open Directory is usually called by initials - ODP.
Overture changed its name to GoTo on October 8, 2001. “Overture is an introduction, and that’s what our company does. We also felt that it was too complicated a word to promote our products on the market, ”said GoTO Executive Director Jaynie Studenmund, hinting at the acquisition of AlltheWeb and AltaVista in 2003.
GoTo has even more ancient roots. The original search engine for the company was the World Wide Web Worm (the “Network Worm”), one of the first search engines on the web, created by Professor Oliver McBryan, a professor at the University of Colorado. McBrien sold the technology to Idealab, which then organized GoTo.com in December 1999. Teoma means “knowledgeable, expert” in Gallic, which should emphasize the site’s analytical capabilities in a local search, as well as a section of search results called “Resources: collections of links for experts and lovers. "
Yahoo! was launched as the “key to the World Wide Web by Jerry” named after service co-founder Jerry Yang. The very word Yahoo! - This is an acronym meaning "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle" ("Another unofficial soothsayer"), but Young and the second co-founder David Filo (David Filo), apparently looking at the word in the dictionary, insist on the following decoding of Yahoo! - “coarse, unsophisticated, uncouth”. Today, Yang and Filo call themselves “Chief Yahoo”.
Infu got out of the old archives, because the links can not share.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/25058/
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