Launched by Wired Magazine in 1996, HotBot was one of the web's most popular search engines through the late 90s. Acquired by search giant Lycos in 1998, it suffered from lack of development under its new ownership and quickly saw its market share fall. In 2002, HotBot was relaunched with the option for users to search either the FAST, Google, Inktomi or Teoma databases, and would remain a front end for other search engines for nearly a decade. During this time, its site design remained mostly unchanged and was more reminiscent of the 90s then the 2000s.
In 2011, HotBot was relaunched as a web portal, providing information such as news and weather in addition to search results. It was also updated with a new logo, mascot and design as part of the relaunch. This incarnation of HotBot only lasted six months and by 2012, it returned to being a search engine. HotBot still exists today as a front end for Bing.