Register Keywords - What happened to it?

[Tech2]

A few years ago there was a new idea, which allowed all of us to purchase keywords; these keywords could be used by someone typing in the keyword into their browser…. Instead of getting an error page, or directed to a search engine they were directed to the owner of that particular keyword.
I almost bought into that.
It was something that was used like a domain name, and in many ways- I guess you could say that it was, just without an extension.

My question is, what happened to that program-it appears to have completely disappeared off the internet.
If I am not mistaken, this was offered by Network Solutions - and perhaps other places (back when domains were $70 per year) and it was operational for a while, I remember testing it out

I am sure that i'm not the only one here who remembers this... I was very impressed and as stated, I almost bought a keyword... looks like those who did, were screwed.

 

[Virgil]

Sounds like AOL keywords to me.

 

[Tech2]

No, this wasn't AOL keywords- but something like that, except it was net wide and any browser could use it - and I have never had AOL... I remember this clearly, and I was going to buy into it this year, found it is missing and apparently it's been discontinued

The year for this was either 98, 99 or 2000.

 

[Shorty]

I think I remember what he's talking about, I didn't even realise they'd stopped doing this...Sorry, I don't know what happened to that either.

 

[alex_d]

I remember something vaguely about that. Was interested myself in them a few years back, and then realised that they would only work if the user who typed in the keywords had a browser-type program already installed on their pc, and apparently, about 1 in 7 million actually bothered to download this. It would have been very interesting if it actually worked without the need for any downloads, etc.

Can you imagine if you "bought" keywords such as "Poker", "Internet" of something like that ??


Alex