ABSTRACT
The early history of Internet search systems was quite diverse, and went through several stages before settling into the more mature recent environment of a few major search engines. The authors note: “From the early beginnings of Telnet, File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Archie, Veronica, and Gopher to the current iterations of Web search engines and search directories that use graphical interfaces, spiders, worms, robots, complex algorithms, proprietary information, competing interfaces, and advertising, access to the vast store of materials that is the Internet has depended upon search tools.”
