Comments on: Who coined the term Alternative Search Engine?

By: Phil Bradley

Phil Bradley — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 06:53:23 +0000

Ah well, if you want an alternative to the main search engines, then we’re going to have to limit to post 1999 really. In which case I think we’re looking at a Mr Bernard Poole, who on 19th August 2002 described Northern Light as ‘an alternative search engine’, though I think he was thinking more in terms of alternatives to the main search engines which at the time he wrote I don’t believe he was thinking of Google. His ’safesearch’ page is still online at http://www.pitt.edu/~poole/OtherSearchTools.html (which is a little disturbing itself!).

If you’re looking for a reference that is specific to Google then in that case we’re looking at the easy bake coven. ‘Susan’ says “But if Google suddenly vanished from the internet, what other search engine would you use? I’d like to have an good alternative search engine to use and some that I’ve tried lately, seem to reveal pretty much the same info that Google does. I believe Google is integrated with Yahoo now. I know it’s combined with AOL search. And for independent searching, I no longer am satisfied with such a monopoly as Google anymore.” (I wonder what she’s thinking now!) The URL for this one is at http://easybakecoven.net/2002/09/google-alternative-most-everyone-uses.html

However, you could argue this reference isn’t good enough because she’s asking the question theoretically, rather than stating that there ARE alternative search engines. If that’s the viewpoint you want to take, which is perfectly acceptable then we’re looking at Kathleen McGinn Spring who wrote in October 9, 2002 edition of U.S. 1 Newspaper. She refers to a librarian, Janie Hermann, who uses different search engines and says “Another alternative search engine on which Hermann relies is the Invisible Web Directory.” (This isn’t available on the web any longer; I had to find it in an archival format at http://tinyurl.com/3prvap)

(By the way, I’m doing this as an interesting academic exercise - should I be fortunate enough to win please donate the prize to some charity or the other.)

Phil.

So for my money, I think the answer to your question is probably McGinn.

By: Charles Knight

Charles Knight — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 22:14:02 +0000

I’ll need your address if you want that Grand prize…

Actually I had not considered a pre-Google alternative. We may have two winners!

I guess as soon as there was a “search engine,” then there could be an alternative to it!

Charles

By: Phil Bradley

Phil Bradley — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 21:47:41 +0000

The first ‘alternative search engine’ would appear to be The Text Optimum Retrieval Engine developed by the InterSoft Corporation, way back in May 1995. Take a look at http://www.lib.msu.edu/harris23/red_tape/o&e9502.htm or for simplicities sake:

“If you are tired of using GPO Access (heaven forbid!) to search the Federal Register, or tired of using the menu approach provided by Counterpoint Publishing, try an alternative search engine–The Text Optimum Retrieval Engine–developed by the InterSoft Corporation. In addition to standard searching you can try clicking on various other otions such as proximity, phonetic, spell tolerant, acronym and thesaurus searching, and specify the number of hits you want to look at. Try it out. It’s free.”