I used Ilse (a Dutch search engine) back in the days before Google.
A message from 16 February, 1996
“Hello,
We have developped the ILSE search engine. This engine can be found at
http://www.il.ft.hse.nl/ilse
With our current provider we are to restricted in use of bandwidth and
possibilities to exploit the search engine commercially.
We want to hire a server with fast internet connection to run the search
engine. We need at least 100 Mb (WTF, 100 Mb, rebbel) to store the engine. We prefere a FreeBSD
server. We also want our own domain name (ic www.protex.com or
www.protex.nl )
Any good offers can be mailed to pro…@”
Apparently it still exists.