The History of Search Engines and Browsers

Two sites have come to my attention recently which provide an interesting overview of the history of internet searching and the historical development of web browsers. The first one is searchenginehistory.com As much as Google enjoys dominance today, it is interesting to think that at one stage Yahoo! was the thought and market leader and that in 1994, Lycos ranked first on Netscape's list of search engines only to see other developers come in, innovate and gain huge market share. It just goes to show that the dominant search engine of today may not be so tomorrow unless they continue to innovate. This site also has an excellent overview of Search Engine Optimisation as well as aspects of Search Engine Marketing such as Pay Per Click and Google AdSense.

The Evolution of the Web site has an interesting interactive chart which shows the development of the various web browsers. A surprising fact I found was that the Opera browser has been around for even longer than Internet Explorer, beginning a few months earlier in 1995. It also gives a timeline of the stage the various versions of CSS, HTML etc, came in. Furthermore, it links to useful guides about new exciting elements such as CSS3 3D Transforms and video tags and when browsers are expected to support them.