AlltheWeb
| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Internet search engine |
| Predecessor | FTP Search |
| Founded | 1999 |
| Fate | Discontinued |
| Successor | None |
| Headquarters | Norway |
Area served | Worldwide |
| Parent | Yahoo! (from 2003) |
AlltheWeb—also recognized as FAST or FAST Search—was an Internet search engine introduced in the middle of 1999 and discontinued in 2011. Its foundation traces back to FTP Search, which was inspired by Tor Egge's 1994 doctoral dissertation at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. This academic work eventually led to the establishment of Fast Search & Transfer (FAST) in July 1997.
Traits
Initially, FAST's objective was to provide its search index to various other engines, portals, ISPs, and content platforms. By August 1999, AlltheWeb had cataloged 200 million distinct URLs; this number expanded to over 2 billion pages by June 2002.
AlltheWeb competed directly with Google by emphasizing benefits such as a more frequently updated index, sophisticated search capabilities, search result clustering, and a highly customizable user interface.
Closure
In February 2003, the web search segment of FAST was purchased by Overture for $70 million. Subsequently, in July 2003, Overture itself was acquired by Yahoo!, transferring ownership of AlltheWeb to Yahoo!. After this acquisition, AlltheWeb began utilizing Yahoo!'s search index, which led to the elimination of some advanced functionalities like FTP search and direct image search.
By May 2006, Yahoo! experimented with integrating live search results into AlltheWeb to improve user interaction. Nevertheless, on April 4, 2011, Yahoo! officially terminated AlltheWeb’s service, ceasing its operations.
See also
External links
- Alltheweb.es search engine (archived).