Infoseek

One of the first big web search engines, Netscape's default for a year, bought by Disney and buried inside Go.com

Shut down
19902026

Infoseek was a web search engine founded by Steve Kirsch in January 1994 and launched in early 1995. It became Netscape's default search in 1995, went public in June 1996 and was one of the five big search portals of the late 1990s. Disney bought a stake in 1998 and the rest in 1999, merging it into Go.com; the Infoseek brand was dropped in December 2000 and Disney closed the Go.com portal on 29 January 2001. Infoseek Japan survives separately under Rakuten.

Timeline [edit]

  1. 1994
  2. January 1994 Launch
    Infoseek founded

    Steve Kirsch, Sunnyvale.

  3. 1995
  4. February 1995 Launch
    Infoseek search opens

    Paid at first, then free as Infoseek Guide.

  5. December 1995 Feature
    Netscape default search

    On the Net Search button of Navigator.

  6. 1996
  7. 11 June 1996 other
    IPO

    Infoseek lists on Nasdaq.

  8. 1998
  9. 18 June 1998 Acquisition
    Disney buys 43%

    $70 million plus Starwave.

  10. 1999
  11. 12 January 1999 other
    Go Network launches

    Infoseek search at the centre of a Disney portal.

  12. 17 November 1999 merger
    Infoseek becomes Go.com

    A Disney tracking stock.

  13. 2000
  14. 1 December 2000 Shutdown announced
    Infoseek brand dropped

    Search replaced by GoTo.com listings.

  15. 2001
  16. 29 January 2001 Shutdown
    Disney closes the Go.com portal

    About 400 jobs cut, mostly in Sunnyvale.

The site through time

Browse infoseek.com as it was, via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine:

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 Full archive →

Ownership [edit]

Infoseek Corporation 1994–1999 Founded Founded by Steve Kirsch; Disney held 43% from June 1998
The Walt Disney Company (Go.com) 1999–2001 Acquisition Merged into Go.com; brand dropped December 2000, portal closed 2001

Why it shut down [edit]

Official line: Disney bought 43% of Infoseek in June 1998, folded it into the Go Network portal in January 1999 and acquired the rest in November 1999. In December 2000 Disney dropped the Infoseek brand from Go.com and replaced its search engine with results bought from GoTo.com, and on 29 January 2001 it announced it was closing the Go.com portal altogether, laying off about 400 people, most of them at the old Infoseek offices in Sunnyvale. The Ultraseek enterprise search product had already been sold to Inktomi.

Our analysis: Infoseek was a real search engine with a real business, but 1998 was the year every portal had to belong to a media giant, and Disney wanted a portal more than a search engine. Under Go.com the search got less investment just as Google was demonstrating what search could be, and when the portal strategy collapsed after the dot-com crash Disney had no reason to keep it. Its Japanese licensee, Infoseek Japan, still runs under Rakuten, which is why the name is not quite dead.

History [edit]

Search you paid for, then search you did not

Steve Kirsch, who had already founded Mouse Systems and Frame Technology, started Infoseek in Sunnyvale in January 1994. It launched in early 1995 as a paid service, $9.95 a month for a hundred queries, and quickly gave that up: Infoseek Guide, free and advertising-funded, appeared in February 1996 and the paid tier followed it into history. What made Infoseek was a deal with Netscape in 1995 that put it on the Net Search button of the browser almost everyone used, and it rode that to an IPO on 11 June 1996. Its ranking was good, its interface was plain, and for a couple of years it sat with Yahoo, Lycos, Excite and AltaVista as one of the sites the web started from.

Like the others it tried to become a portal: email, personalisation, channels, and in April 1998 the purchase of WebChat Broadcasting System. It also built Ultraseek, an enterprise search server that many intranets ran for years afterwards.

Disney

On 18 June 1998 Disney bought 43% of Infoseek for $70 million plus Starwave, and on 12 January 1999 the Go Network launched with Infoseek's search at its core and ABC, ESPN and Disney content around it. In July 1999 Disney agreed to buy the rest, and on 17 November 1999 Infoseek stopped existing as a company: it became Go.com, a tracking stock of the Walt Disney Company. Kirsch had left; the engineers stayed in Sunnyvale.

Go.com never caught Yahoo, and after the crash Disney lost patience. In December 2000 it dropped the Infoseek name from the portal and swapped its own search results for paid listings from GoTo.com; Ultraseek was sold to Inktomi. On 29 January 2001 Disney announced it would close the Go.com portal, cut about 400 jobs and fold what was left back into the parent. The infoseek.com address was pointed at go.com and has stayed there. Infoseek Japan, licensed in 1998 and later bought by Rakuten, is a different company and still runs.

The domain today

infoseek.com redirects to go.com, a Disney landing page. infoseek.co.jp is Rakuten's unrelated Japanese portal.

Similar projects

DMOZ The web, catalogued by hand 1998–2017 AltaVista Search, before Google 1995–2013 Wunderlist The to-do app Microsoft bought to bury 2011–2020 Vine Six seconds, looped forever 2013–2017 Half.com It once bought a whole town for its name 1999–2017 Periscope Live from anywhere, until the money ran out 2015–2021

Sources [edit]

  1. Infoseek hits Wall Street CNET 11 June 1996 [archived]
  2. Infoseek to buy WebChat Broadcasting Los Angeles Times 15 April 1998 [archived]
  3. Disney spins off Go.com Variety 18 November 1999 [archived]
  4. Disney spins off Internet division as Go.com D23 (Disney) 17 November 1999 [archived]
  5. Disney abandons InfoSeek brand Forbes 1 December 2000 [archived]
  6. Disney to discontinue Go.com portal (8-K exhibit) U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission 29 January 2001 [archived]

Last verified: 16 August 2026. Spotted an error? Suggest an edit (corrections with sources are reviewed and applied).