[VIDEO] The Most Popular Websites from 1993 to Today

Although it is hard to imagine modern life today without Google or YouTube, it is interesting to see how much and how the web has changed over the last few decades.

This animation provides a historical overview of the most popular websites from 1993 to today, showing how the internet has evolved since the early 90s.

Although the web has changed drastically over the years, the top-ranking websites have remained relatively consistent. Here is an overview of the most trafficked websites since 1993 and when each website held the top spot.

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photo Visualcapitalist

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AOL was one of the first major web portals back in the days of CD-ROMs and dial-up modems. At its peak, the company dominated the market, largely thanks to an aggressive free trial campaign that cost millions (perhaps even billions) of dollars.
Despite the large investment, the campaign was successful – at its height, AOL had over 30 million users and a market cap of over $200 billion. It was the most popular website until the early 2000s when broadband began to replace dial-up. As time went on, AOL struggled to remain relevant but ultimately was sold to Verizon for just $4.4 billion.

After the fall of AOL, Yahoo became the next internet giant. Starting as a web directory, Yahoo was the first website to offer localized indexes for larger cities. At its best, Yahoo was worth $125 billion, but with a series of missed opportunities and failed acquisitions, some chances were missed forever. Just like AOL, Yahoo is now owned by Verizon, but it still ranks among the top 10 websites globally.

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Before Google’s success, it was no surprise that Google is currently in the top spot. The project began in the early 90s as a university research project, and today it has become synonymous with the internet, which makes sense given that 90% of all internet searches are conducted on Google.

Old School Search Engines

Before Google’s success, there were several other search engines that paved the way for Google in many ways: 

• WebCrawler was the first search engine that allowed full-text searching. At one point, the website was so popular that the server would constantly crash, making it practically unusable during peak traffic.
• Lycos: This was another key search engine, created in 1994 (a year before Yahoo). Lycos was the first of its kind to include relevance finding and matching.
• Infoseek: As Netscape’s default search engine, Infoseek was popular during the peak of web browsers. Eventually, Disney bought Infoseek and renamed it go.com.

Unlike Infoseek, Lycos, and WebCrawler still exist today but are nowhere near comparable to Google in terms of revenue or daily search volume.

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