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(Yahoo! Inc., Sunnyvale, CA, www.yahoo.com) The largest and most comprehensive information portal on the Web. Along with Web search, news, sports and weather, Yahoo! offers e-mail, instant messaging, travel, auctions, classified ads, discussion groups, Web hosting and numerous other services.

It Began with Search
When it launched in 1995, Yahoo! was the first Web search site to gain worldwide attention. It distinguished itself in the early days because it created its indexes manually. Instead of sending out automated spiders that roamed the Web and indexed everything in sight, indexing specialists decided what categories a Web page fit in. As a result, Yahoo! called itself a "directory," rather than just a search engine. Today, Yahoo! also uses spiders because the Web has grown too large to handle entirely by hand.

A Student Hobby
In 1994, Stanford Ph.D candidates Jerry Yang and David Filo began indexing interesting Web sites as a hobby. "Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web" turned into Yahoo!, meaning "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle!" A very successful IPO followed in 1996, and within a few years, Yahoo! became a major global brand with offices around the world. See Yahoo! Store and Web search engines.