home
Menu
Create
Random
0
0
0
thumbnail

Most Popular Websites of the 1990s

Name the top 20 Internet domains every year from 1996-1999, according to Com Score/Media Metrix
ComScore groups all related websites together.
Quiz by kalbahamut
Rate:
Last updated: December 3, 2018
You have not attempted this quiz yet.
More quiz info >>
First submittedJanuary 29, 2015
Times taken319
Average score14.3%
Report this quizReport
Quiz and answer stats >>
Friends stats >>
6:00
Enter answer here
0
 / 49 guessed
The quiz is paused. You have remaining.
Scoring
You scored / = %
This beats or equals % of test takers also scored 100%
The average score is
Your high score is
Your fastest time is
Keep scrolling down for answers and more stats ...
1996
Category
Website
portal/ISP
AOL
search
WebCrawler
search/portal
Netscape
search/portal
Yahoo
search/information
Infoseek
portal/ISP
Prodigy
portal/ISP
Compuserv
university
umich.edu
portal
Primenet
online community
Well
university
cmu.edu
portal/ISP
GNN
search/portal
MCom
university
MIT.edu
search/portal
Teleport
web hosting
Geocities
web hosting
Webcom
adult
Penthouse
search/portal
Excite
university
UIUC.edu
1997
Category
Website
portal/ISP
AOL
search/portal
Yahoo
search/portal
Netscape
computing
Microsoft
web hosting
Geocities
search/portal
Excite
search/information
Infoseek
search
Lycos
portal/ISP
MSN
?
Digital
directory
Switchboard
computing
ZDNet
web hosting
Tripod
search
WebCrawler
web hosting
Simplenet
media company
Disney
directory
Four11
media player
Real
portal/ISP
Prodigy
portal/ISP
Compuserv
1998
Category
Website
portal/ISP
AOL
search/portal
Yahoo
web hosting
Geocities
portal/ISP
MSN
search/portal
Netscape
search/portal
Excite
search
Lycos
computing
Microsoft
ecards
Americangreetings
search/information
Infoseek
search
Altavista
web hosting
Tripod
web hosting
Xoom
web hosting
Angelfire
web mail
Hotmail
shopping
Amazon
media player
Real
computing
ZDNet
search
Hotbot
directory
Infospace
1999
Category
Website
portal/ISP
AOL
search/portal
Yahoo
computing
Microsoft
search
Lycos
search/portal
Excite
portal
Go
shopping
Amazon
television
NBC
information
About
media company
Time Warner
media player
Real
search
Altavista
web hosting
Go2Net
shopping
eBay
computing
CNET
computing
ZDNet
search/portal
LookSmart
web hosting
Juno
search
Goto
directory
Infospace
kalbahamut
+1
Level 82
Jan 29, 2015
75% got Go? Probably trying to type in "google"... this was before google's rise to prominence. Though there are a lot of other search websites on here...
kalbahamut
+1
Level 82
Feb 13, 2015
Now it's up to 97%... the one answer everyone tries (google) is not a correct answer. Was nobody taking this quiz alive in 1996?
DeusCaritasEst
+2
Level 55
Mar 31, 2015
I was! As proof, I tried "Ask Jeeves" as one of my answers haha. I simply tried "Google" out of sheer desperation once I couldn't think of any others.
Antofagasta
+1
Level 67
Jan 13, 2017
Yes, I tried google too, but all you need is a small typo to get Goto.
kalbahamut
+1
Level 82
Jan 13, 2017
nah it doesn't even require a typo, because "go" is an acceptable type-in
Soph1
+2
Level 49
Jan 14, 2017
I also tried askjeeves as I used it!
kalbahamut
+1
Level 82
Nov 14, 2021
I remember using WebCrawler the most when my family first got online with AOL. But there were so many competitors. I also regularly used Lycos and Yahoo and I think sometimes Xoom. No one search engine was perfect, usually far from it, so you'd often try several to collate the results. Then AltaVista came along and for a while that was the gold standard that everyone used... then AltaVista Digital.. AskJeeves was around at the same time as this but I rarely used it. And then finally Google showed up and pretty quickly everyone stopped using anything else because it was so much better. Though Yahoo stubbornly held on for quite a while, and was especially popular in some overseas territories like India, I think.
kalbahamut
+1
Level 82
Nov 14, 2021
Also due to the fact that search engines were not great at the time I think is a big part of why you see so many of the top sites are these "portal" websites - places where you could go to get news, weather, and various other information, edited by people manually who would find interesting stuff on the Internet and put it all together in one place - so you didn't have to go out searching for it you could just click on links.

My friend Mike actually ran his own website like this for a while... on his he collected all of the weirdest, most bizarre and extremely niche stuff that you could find on the Internet and posted links and short reviews of that.

kalbahamut
+1
Level 82
Nov 14, 2021
most of it other than the text is missing, but here's a copy courtesy of the Wayback Machine. Ah... the exploding whale video... Conan the Agrarian... brings back memories.
Cedo
+1
Level 40
Feb 5, 2016
I can only guess the amount of difficulty looking for a "digital" website was.
kalbahamut
+1
Level 82
Nov 13, 2016
Yeah I have no idea what that was. The article I got this from also had no idea.
Soph1
+1
Level 49
Jan 14, 2017
I haven't heard of most of these. I was born in 1985 but admittedly did not really use the internet til 99. This quiz is a bit different!
kalbahamut
+1
Level 82
Jan 14, 2017
My cousin Ritchie had a modem and Internet access back in the 1980s. We would use it mostly to visit bulletin boards and we played this one really really primitive text-based science fiction game.

My friend Chris had a Prodigy or Compuserv account back around 1992 I think. Can't remember which. About all it was good for was checking e-mail and a couple other things- but getting online was really expensive so we didn't do it much.

My family got an AOL account sometime around 1994, I think. I remember visiting the Nintendo Power Source a lot (AOL exclusive site, so not actually a website), as well as the AOL chat rooms. I used WebCrawler to search the world wide web most of the time until AltaVista Digital came along which was superior. The start pages of all the computers at my high school were set to either Netscape or Yahoo.

kalbahamut
+1
Level 82
Jan 14, 2017
Most of these are familiar to me. Never heard of Primenet, Well (though I looked it up and it's interesting), GNN, Webcom, or Simplenet- or maybe I just forgot. These were early services that sold people Internet access and then had their own portal to help people find and access online content (essentially the latter service google provides now, in the early days there was no company that had such a monopoly); or they were webhosting services that allowed individuals to create their own web pages- something else very common in those days as you can see by the results.

I have no idea what "Digital" is, I couldn't even find information on that website so I wasn't sure what category to put it in.

markthoma
+2
Level 73
Jun 1, 2018
I love this quiz so much and I only got 39%.

My best lucky get "American Greetings" when I was just typing in names of greeting cards companies...haha.

Save Your Progress
Similar Quizzes by Tag

Copyright H Brothers Inc, 2008–2024

Contact Us | Go To Top | View Mobile Site