HotBot: A brief history of the HotBot search engine

HotBot was launched in May 1996. It was owned and operated by Wired Magazine and became a popular tool with search results served by the Inktomi database and directory results provided originally by LookSmart and then The Open Directory since mid-1999. Hotbot also used search data from Direct Hit for a period, which was a tool that used click-through data to manipulate results.

The Lycos company acquired HotBot in 1998 and for a number of years this search tool has languished with limited development and falling market share. At the end of 2002 HotBot was relaunched as a multiple option search tool, giving users the option to search either the FAST, Google, Inktomi or Teoma databases.

HotBot continues to attract a reasonable amount of search traffic and now just provides search results from either MSN Search or Ask (Teoma).

If you'd like to know more about HotBot, or to find out how your website can achieve a top ranking on the main search engines, contact us for more information or to request a FREE website assessment.