How We Found Things Before Google

It is difficult now to imagine using the web without starting with a search box. If I want to know something, find a particular site, look up a product, or locate an obscure bit of technical information, search is usually the obvious first step. That was not always how the web worked. Before Google became dominant, finding things online was a mixture of search engines, human-edited directories, bookmarks, links from other websites, recommendations from people, and a certain amount of wandering around to see what turned up. None of these methods was as comprehensive or efficient as modern search, but together they produced a very different way of discovering the Internet. The interesting part is not whether that older system was better. In many ways it clearly was not. The interesting part is how people found their way through a web that had not yet developed one overwhelmingly dominant method of discovery. The Web Needed a Map The early web was small by modern standards, but it grew…