Description:- WebCrawler - metasearch results from popular engines and directories. WebCrawler was originally a completely independent service, opened to the public on April 20, 1994. It was started as a research project at the University of Washington. America Online purchased it in March 1995 and was the online service's preferred search engine until Nov. 1996. That was when Excite, a WebCrawler competitor, acquired the service.