
Jonathon Fletcher: forgotten father of the search engine (2013) - jackgavigan
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-23945326
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aplorbust
MOMSpider was the one I remember.

What's interesting about web crawling is that it has always been
controversial.

Many website operators back then did not like crawlers. And that sort of
sentiment continues to this day. The web has never fully consented to being
indexed.

This has always struck me as odd. Perhaps there should have been more thought
about a bifurcation of "private" web and "public" web. Of course in retrospect
the value of the public one seems far greater; Google's corporate wealth
points to that conclusion.

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johansch
It was probably a very neat hack (I didn't use it; my first search engine of
choice was Webcrawler in '95\. Then Altavista and Alltheweb (Norway, NTNU!
First known as ftpsearch.ntnu.no.). Then omfg, this Google thing really works,
'98 - "why won't they let me buy shares in their company"?)

But I think Jonathon would agree that it was the obvious next step. There was
already the (overly) academical WAIS etc.

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frik
"In my opinion, the web isn't going to last forever" sounds quite bitter.

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downer72
Jonathon always appears to be a misspelling of Jonathan. Like as if someone
were promoting a Jon-a-thon.

