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After The Walt Disney Company purchased the search engine Infoseek, Go.com (also known as The Go Network) was formed as a portal for Disney content. Disney Parks, Experiences, and Products, one of the company's four divisions, manages Go.com. Jeff Gold started it all as a web portal. Content from ABC News, which is owned by Walt Disney Television and hosted under the.go.com domain, is available on Go.com. Go.com, like Time Warner's Pathfinder.com, was a costly failure for its parent business, as web users preferred to access content directly through search engines rather than through directories. The website was converted from a general-interest portal to a simple landing page in 2013.
Disney registered Go.com on January 9, 1998. The Go Network, an online portal, was developed in collaboration between Infoseek and Disney Interactive Media Group. On January 15, 1999, Go.com was launched as a portal incorporating material from ABCNews.com, ESPN.com, and Disney.
The Go Network, Infoseek, the Disney Catalog, Disney Online (Disney.com and DisneyStore.com), ABC News Internet Ventures, ESPN Internet Ventures, and Buena Vista Internet Group were merged into the Go.com company with Disney's purchase of the remainder of Infoseek in July 1999; the company was 72 percent Disney-owned, with the remaining outstanding ownership in a tracking stock.
The Go Guides program, a user-edited directory similar to DMOZ, was released in October 1999.
Go.com was compelled to abandon its original stoplight logo in January 2000 because GoTo.com filed a complaint about similar-looking logos. At the same time, Go.com announced that it would transition from being a general appeal portal to focusing on entertainment content. A court later ordered Go.com to pay GoTo.com $21.5 million in damages.
However, in January 2001, Disney announced that Go.com and its search engine will be shut down, with around 400 people laid off and the go.com tracking stock being retired. The closure of Go.com's volunteer-edited directory was also announced. Some volunteers built or migrated to offshoot directories such as JoeAnt, Goguides.org, and Skaffe.com as a result of the closure.
Go.com abandoned its proprietary search engine in March 2001 in favor of GoTo.com search results.
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