Ultimately, Wikipedia provides an effective keyword lookup that maps to curated links.

Regardless, the notion of a general web index is well nigh moot at this point due to its not having been built into the system from the get-go. Any such attempt at this point will be, by definition, ad hoc and built by some group of individuals, with the vastness of the content, the cost of the project and the intrinsic conflicts that will no doubt arise making independence from finance and legal issues non-trivial, to say the least.

Really, Wikipedia is the most sensible foundation I can imagine, given that Google has become a self-serving for-profit corporate advertising machine.