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Altavista: The rise and fall of the biggest pre-Google search engine

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Re: Altavista: The rise and fall of the biggest pre-Google search engine

#101

Post by rusk »

Finnucane wrote: post #93
rusk wrote: post #88

Altavista were also the first ones doing online translation. babelfish.altavista.com, anyone remember that? The Babelfish being Douglas Adams' fictional fish that you stuck in your ear to use as a universal translator. there was also a fake domain called alta-vista.com that was very much of the goatse variety.

O yeah, the early days of online translation were . . . interesting. Especially fun was bidirectional translation (i.e., english -> german -> english, etc.).

It was “good enough” to get a sense of what was in the document. Whats particularly interesting is how little things have come along since then!

Re: Altavista: The rise and fall of the biggest pre-Google search engine

#102

Post by Infernal »

BryantD wrote: post #99

This article misses one of the primary reasons for AV's demise -- we didn't update our primary index for several months just as Google was gaining mindshare. A ridiculously high percentage of our front page links were 404s, while Google was always fresh. This was particularly bad because one of our earlier strong points was fresh indexes. Our ability to refresh the supplementary index on the fly was awesome. When you…

Why was that primary index not updated for those several months? What happened that led to that?

Re: Altavista: The rise and fall of the biggest pre-Google search engine

#104

Post by CydeWeys »

BryantD wrote: post #99

This article misses one of the primary reasons for AV's demise -- we didn't update our primary index for several months just as Google was gaining mindshare. A ridiculously high percentage of our front page links were 404s, while Google was always fresh. This was particularly bad because one of our earlier strong points was fresh indexes. Our ability to refresh the supplementary index on the fly was awesome. When you…

Why didn't you update your primary index for several months? Were there serious technical breakages?

Re: Altavista: The rise and fall of the biggest pre-Google search engine

#105

Post by groestl »

luckylion wrote: post #39
afandian wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm nostagic for precise search, but I wonder how it would have fared with the scale we have now. (Edit: scale and diversity of input data but also audiences) Google regularly fails to include all words I searched (even if it's only three or four), often retrieving completely useless results. I doubt it's due to incompetence; I take it as a signal that they're now struggling to match the volume and characteristics of…

Interesting idea. I figured it was due to the user base of 2019 being very different than that of 2010, and Google adapting to the fact that most of their users aren't technology literate and cannot formulate clear search queries, so they just try to guess what might be of interest to them.

It's also that after bootstrapping with text search and page rank, they can incorporate a lot more useful signals in there ranking algorithm: the clickstream on the search results, and page visit time after the click. If the majority of their user base would actually want precise search, this clickstream would not reorder the results, but it does. So most users are happier with imprecise ranking.

The wealth of user traffic is also what no other search engine can replicate, due to Google's market share in web searches.

Re: Altavista: The rise and fall of the biggest pre-Google search engine

#106

Post by new12345 »

BryantD wrote: post #99

This article misses one of the primary reasons for AV's demise -- we didn't update our primary index for several months just as Google was gaining mindshare. A ridiculously high percentage of our front page links were 404s, while Google was always fresh. This was particularly bad because one of our earlier strong points was fresh indexes. Our ability to refresh the supplementary index on the fly was awesome. When you…

I feel that Google brought in a shift in thinking of internet companies. In pre-google era, companies operated like an government office, once they gain marked foot hold they virtually stop enhancing their products. Google and other successful startups have taught us that a tech company is prone to fall if it doesn't innovate.

Re: Altavista: The rise and fall of the biggest pre-Google search engine

#107

Post by JoeSmithson »

timcederman wrote: post #98
elfakyn wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google changed the operators; now it's double quotes instead of plus (it was changed for google+ so that the plus searches g+ profiles and pages). You now have to search: "noir" "film" -"pinot noir" I wonder whether they'll revert back now that google+ is dead.

It still doesn't always respect the quotes.

People always seem to claim this on HN but it's never happened for me - do you have an example?

Re: Altavista: The rise and fall of the biggest pre-Google search engine

#108

Post by steelframe »

siggen wrote: post #31
baldfat wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google was immediately better then anything else from day one. Google was launched in Fall of 1997. In January 98 is when I started using it and it was hands down better then crawlers or any other search engine.

I fear all we have now is anecdotal evidence. :-) In my case, it was a gradual conversion to Google from Altavista than something immediate. So, funny thing: Back then, if one search engine didn't have what you were looking for, you would try another. Now, if Google doesn't have what you are looking for, where do you go? Does it mean the answer does not exist on the Internet? Do you try Bing or Duck?

Duck is Bing.

https://www.quora.com/How-is-the-Bing-API-used-by-DuckDuckGo

There are effectively only two competitive search engines in the U.S. and European markets today. In those markets, Bing is the only market pressure keeping Google honest.

Re: Altavista: The rise and fall of the biggest pre-Google search engine

#109

Post by glaberficken »

As a European early adopter I still remember the day i switched from recommending Altavista to all my friends and family to Google. Speed was definitely not the reason. It was purely about the usefulness of the results. There was just a point in time where Google surpassed everyone else in relevance of the 1st page of results, and there was no going back.

Re: Altavista: The rise and fall of the biggest pre-Google search engine

#110

Post by EGreg »

BryantD wrote: post #99

This article misses one of the primary reasons for AV's demise -- we didn't update our primary index for several months just as Google was gaining mindshare. A ridiculously high percentage of our front page links were 404s, while Google was always fresh. This was particularly bad because one of our earlier strong points was fresh indexes. Our ability to refresh the supplementary index on the fly was awesome. When you…

How is it that you could refresh your supplementary index and then couldn’t?
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