From Archie to Privacy: The Search Revolution
Trace the wild ride from 1990’s Archie to Google’s empire and the privacy-first wave of DuckDuckGo, Brave, and Kagi—35 years of search history.
Events in this Collection
1990 September 10
Archie (the first search tool)
While not a web search engine, Archie indexed FTP archives and laid foundational concepts for future search technologies.
1993 June
Wandex (first web search engine)
Created by Matthew Gray, Wandex was the first web-based search engine that used a robotic spider to index websites.
1994 January
Yahoo! Directory launch
Though initially a human-curated directory rather than a crawler-based engine, Yahoo! became a major gateway to the web.
1995
Larry Page and Sergey Brin Meet at Stanford
Larry Page and Sergey Brin meet at Stanford University, setting the stage for Google's founding.
1996 March
Launch of BackRub (later Google)
Larry Page and Sergey Brin began developing their search engine, introducing the revolutionary PageRank algorithm.
1998 August 30
First Google Doodle
The first Google Doodle is created, announcing the team's attendance at the Burning Man Festival.
1998 September 4
Google Inc. Officially Founded
Google Inc. is officially founded after receiving a $100,000 investment from Andy Bechtolsheim.
2000 October 23
Google AdWords launch
Introduced paid search advertising, creating the business model that would fund search engine development.
2004 August 19
IPO of Google
Google's public offering validated search as a major technology sector and provided resources for massive expansion.
2008 February 29
DuckDuckGo launch
DuckDuckGo launched with a focus on protecting user privacy and avoiding the filter bubble of personalized search results.
2009 June 3
Bing search engine launch
Microsoft's entry (replacing Live Search) created serious competition to Google's dominance.
2010 June 8
Google Caffeine update
A major infrastructure overhaul that enabled real-time indexing and faster search results.
2018 May
Kagi founded
Kagi is founded by Vladimir Prelovac in Palo Alto, California, as a bootstrapped, privacy-focused search engine.
2019 July 1
Mobile-first indexing begins
Google starts prioritizing mobile versions of websites, reflecting the shift to mobile search usage.
2021 June
Brave Search launch
Brave Search officially launches to the public as a privacy-first search engine with its own independent index.
2022 June
Brave Goggles launch
Brave introduces Goggles, a feature allowing users to customize and filter search rankings based on personal preferences
2023 January
Brave Search rolls out the Rerank
Brave Search rolls out the Rerank feature, giving users direct control over boosting or hiding domains in search results
2025
Move to The Googleplex
Google outgrows the garage and moves to its current headquarters in Mountain View, California.