That’s not why it didn’t happen. The Web took off in 1995; Google was the first really good web search facility, and it arrived in 1998. There were earlier ones (I remember using AltaVista), but generally if you wanted to find things before Google you used either a directory like Yahoo or other web pages to find stuff.
We also don’t know what “index and ranking for search” would have looked like in a HyperCard-style web paradigm. Something like Google could work; it would have to be a sophisticated enough to parse stacks instead of HTML, but we’re already deep into an alternate universe, so I’ll stop here.
Also, “index and ranking for search” is probably a bad thing. SEO has absolutely destroyed the web.
We also don’t know what “index and ranking for search” would have looked like in a HyperCard-style web paradigm. Something like Google could work; it would have to be a sophisticated enough to parse stacks instead of HTML, but we’re already deep into an alternate universe, so I’ll stop here.
Also, “index and ranking for search” is probably a bad thing. SEO has absolutely destroyed the web.