 Home page as of January 2019 | |
Type of site | Search engine |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Founded | 2000; 25 years ago (2000) |
| Dissolved | April 2023; 2 years ago (April 2023) |
| Headquarters | Albuquerque,New Mexico, United States[1] |
| Owner | Gigablast,Inc. |
| Created by | Matt Wells |
| Registration | Optional |
| Launched | 2002; 23 years ago (2002)[2][3] |
| Current status | Offline |
| Written in | C/C++ |
| Developer(s) | Matt Wells |
|---|---|
| Final release | |
| Repository | https://github.com/gigablast/open-source-search-engine |
| Written in | C/C++ |
| Operating system | Linux |
| Type | search engine |
| License | Apache License 2.0 |
| Website | www |
Gigablast was an Americanfree and open-sourceweb search engine anddirectory. Founded in 2000, it was an independent engine andweb crawler,[6] developed and maintained by Matt Wells, a formerInfoseek employee andNew Mexico Tech graduate.[7] During early April 2023, the website went offline without warning and without any official statement.
The open-source search enginesource code is written in the programming languagesC andC++. It was released asopen-source software under theApache License version 2, in July 2013.[8] In 2015, Gigablast claimed to have indexed over 12 billion web pages.[9]
The Gigablast engine provided search results to other companies at various times, includingIxquick,[10]Clusty,[11]Zuula, Snap,[12] Blingo, andInternet Archive.[13]
Matt Wells worked for theInfoseek search engine until he left in 1999, to start working on what would become Gigablast, coding everything from scratch inC++. It was originally designed to index up to 200 billion web pages.[14] Gigablast went intobeta release on July 21, 2002.[15]
Gigablast supported various specializedsearches andBoolean algebra operators.[16] It also supported a related-concept feature calledGiga Bits[17] and a blog-search feature.[18]
A feature called Gigabits provided relevant information in addition to what the user was searching for.[19]
Gigablast also claimed to be, as of 2010, the "leading"clean energy search engine with 90 percent of its power coming fromwind energy.[20]
In 2013, it was reported thatYippy had agreed to acquire Gigablast Inc.[21] However, later on, Gigablast author Matt Wells said that no acquisition took place and that Gigablast remained independent.[13]
In 2003,The New York Times columnist Lee Dembart stated that "Gigablast has its adherents", but opined thatGoogle is "head and shoulders" above it, and adds that Google's search results are more complete.[22] In 2016, aLifewire reviewer felt that Gigablast is easy to use and liked the Gigabits feature.[23]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)Google is indispensable to anyone who uses the Internet. It isn't the only search engine — Teoma has its adherents, as does Gigablast — but Google is head and shoulders above the others.
