geckobot

Geckobot is an internet search engine developed in the late 90’s that demonstrated a number of key innovations, some of which remain novel even today:

1. •Multiple graphical interfaces.  Along with the traditional web form, a number of graphical interfaces are also available.  One interface displays search results in a tiled mosaic, with larger tiles representing more popular sites and more central tiles representing better matches.  Another interface categorizes the internet in 3-dimensional boxes that zoom in when clicked to reveal boxes of subcategories.
   

2. •Web service interface.  Powering the graphical user interfaces is (probably) the first search engine web service.  The web service also enables Javascript clients that can effectively embed custom search engine content into any web page.
   

3. •Reverse index.  Reverse indexing shows who is linking to your web pages and what they are saying about your site.

1. •Quality.  Third-party tests created by industry experts showed that geckobot’s search results were as good, and generally better than, all other leading search engines at the time.
   

2. •Performance. Geckobot was one of the fastest search engines in its day, outperforming huge computing clusters on a single 400mhz Celeron system.

Geckobot is no longer actively running.  Bandwidth and equipment costs coupled with the .com burst led to its final demise a number of years ago.  Occasionally I still receive queries and interest, but a resurrection hardly seems worth the cost and effort given Google’s ubiquity.

Nevertheless, I retain the domain name and email addresses in anticipation of the “next big idea,” several of which are in the works.  Stay tuned.