AlltheWeb (sometimes referred to as FAST or FAST Search) was an Internet
search engine
A search engine is a software system that provides hyperlinks to web pages, and other relevant information on World Wide Web, the Web in response to a user's web query, query. The user enters a query in a web browser or a mobile app, and the sea ...
that made its debut in mid-1999 and was closed in 2011. It grew out of ''FTP Search'', Tor Egge's doctorate thesis at the
Norwegian University of Science and Technology, which he started in 1994, which in turn resulted in the formation of
Fast Search & Transfer
Microsoft Development Center Norway (known as FAST (Fast Search & Transfer ASA) before 2010) is a Norway, Norwegian company, founded in 1997 and based in Oslo, with offices located in Germany, Italy, Sri Lanka, France, Japan, the United Kingdom, ...
(FAST), established on July 16, 1997.
Traits
When AlltheWeb started in 1999, FAST aimed to provide their database to other search engines, major portals,
ISPs and content sites.
By August 2, 1999, the AlltheWeb database had grown to 200 million unique
URLs.
By June 2002, their crawler had indexed over 2 billion pages.
AlltheWeb claimed a few advantages over Google, such as a fresher database, more advanced search features, search clustering and a completely customizable look.
Closure
In February 2003, FAST's web search division was bought by
Overture
Overture (from French ''ouverture'', "opening") is a music instrumental introduction to a ballet, opera, or oratorio in the 17th century. During the early Romantic era, composers such as Beethoven and Mendelssohn composed overtures which ...
for $70 million. In July 2003, Overture was acquired by
Yahoo!
Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, and its a ...
, putting AlltheWeb under the ownership of Yahoo!. Shortly after Yahoo!'s acquisition, the AlltheWeb site started using Yahoo!'s database and some of the advanced functions were removed, such as
FTP
The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and dat ...
search and direct image search.
In May 2006, Yahoo! started testing live search results on AlltheWeb.
On April 4, 2011, AlltheWeb was shut down by Yahoo!.
See also
*
List of search engines
References
External links
*
Alltheweb.essearch Engine (archived).
{{Web search engines
Defunct internet search engines
Discontinued Yahoo! services
Internet properties established in 1999
Internet properties disestablished in 2011
Dot-com bubble
1999 establishments in Norway