Bomis was not a "search engine" per se, though it did have a search box. It was more like a
webring system, or a Yahoo-style website directory.
As was remarked in the past, Bomis started out as a general-interest portal, mostly because Wales and Shell couldn't decide what to feature or cover.
But by 1997, they'd figured out the one thing the web was missing at the time: a way to find "babe pics". Of course, they blew it by not
rushing into that area quickly and developing content. Instead they were lazy--allowing others to post links to content, webring-style.
By 1998, more sleazy and ruthless people than them were putting up adult-material websites, usually requiring payment for access.
Bomis made some money from ads and affiliate links, but they apparently chose to sit around and wait for money to fall on them.
Because they didn't pursue marketing deals with the content producers aggressively, they didn't get very far. Just another also-ran of Web 1.0.
PS: Tim Shell
still owns the bomis.com domain---until November 2012. I wonder if it has any kind of commercial value. Doubtful.
Also, they've managed to convince archive.org to eliminate all the old snapshots of bomis.com, going back to 1996.
Yes, they were there, only a couple of months ago. You see? The Net makes it easy to "rewrite history" and make the past disappear.
The only thing that makes Bomis stand out in my memory were the snotty wisecracks
at the top of every page, that changed automatically when refreshed.
This post has been edited by EricBarbour: 
Bomis
