History of Search Engines Early Developments (1990-1994) The history of search engines begins with the early days of the World Wide Web. The first search engine, Archie, was created in 1990 by Alan Emtage, a student at McGill University in Montreal. Archie was essentially an index of downloadable directory listings, but it didn't provide the ability to search within files … [Read more...] about A Quick History of Search Engines