AltaVista
| Company type | Web search engine |
|---|---|
| Industry | Internet |
| Founded | December 15, 1995 |
| Founder | Paul Flaherty, Louis Monier, Michael Burrows |
| Fate | Shut down and redirected to Yahoo! Search |
| Successor | Yahoo! Search |
| Headquarters | Palo Alto , United States |
Key people | Ilene H. Lang (first CEO), Rod Schrock (CEO at Compaq era) |
| Products | Web search engine, Babel Fish (machine translation), free email service |
| Owner | Digital Equipment Corporation (original), Compaq, CMGI, Overture Services, Yahoo! |
| Website | altavista |
AltaVista was a web search engine introduced in 1995. It stood out as one of the earliest search engines widely adopted by users but eventually saw its market position decline in favor of Google. In 2003, Yahoo! acquired AltaVista and continued to operate the brand while relying on Yahoo!'s own search technology. On July 8, 2013, Yahoo! officially shut down AltaVista, redirecting its URL to the Yahoo! search platform.
Etymology
The term "AltaVista" derives from Spanish, combining "alta" meaning "high" and "vista" meaning "view," symbolizing a broad or elevated perspective.
Origins
AltaVista was created by teams at Digital Equipment Corporation's Network Systems and Western Research Laboratories with the goal of enhancing file retrieval across public networks. The initiative was led by Paul Flaherty, alongside Louis Monier and Michael Burrows, who engineered the web crawler and indexing system. The brand name drew inspiration from the Palo Alto region near their workplace. AltaVista officially went live on December 15, 1995.
Ilene H. Lang was appointed as AltaVista’s inaugural CEO after being brought on board by Digital Equipment Corporation to grow its software division.
At its debut, AltaVista introduced two significant advancements: a rapid, multi-threaded web crawler named Scooter capable of indexing a larger quantity of pages than rivals, and a powerful back-end search infrastructure supported by cutting-edge hardware.
Popularity
AltaVista was the first searchable full-text database available on the World Wide Web, featuring a clean and straightforward user interface. Although this simplicity was later compromised when it transitioned into a Web portal, the focus on search was eventually reinstated. The engine also enabled users to filter results by domain to minimize duplicate content.
The website quickly attracted users, expanding from 300,000 visits on its opening day to over 80 million daily hits within two years. AltaVista became one of the most frequented sites on the Web, generating approximately US$50 million in sponsorship revenue by 1997. It ranked as the 11th most visited site in both 1998 and 2000.
In February 1998, the "Internet Search-Off" survey found AltaVista to be the favored search engine among professional researchers, selected by 45% of respondents, surpassing HotBot’s 20%.
Data from AltaVista’s crawler contributed to an innovative study in 2000 examining web connectivity patterns, involving collaboration among personnel from AltaVista, IBM, and Compaq.
By the year 2000, according to Media Metrix, AltaVista held a user share of 17.7%, compared to Google’s 7%.
Technology
By 1998, AltaVista’s search system operated on weighted Boolean logic and offered two primary query styles: simple and advanced.
Query format
A "simple query" such as `word1 word2 "phrase" -word3 +word4` was interpreted as "(word1 OR word2 OR "phrase") AND NOT word3 AND word4", where quoted phrases required adjacent terms. The "advanced query" option allowed explicit Boolean operators (`and`, `or`, `not`) and included a `near` operator for terms that must be close but not necessarily side-by-side.
Both query types supported domain restriction via `host:xx.yy.zz`. Additional filters for language or last modification date could be applied using menus or input fields.
Search results were ordered according to an internal "relevance function," with ten URLs shown per page. Users had the ability to navigate directly to specific result pages, a feature not universally available among competitors.
Query log
AltaVista recorded user interactions, capturing details such as timestamps, cookies, search terms, URLs of results, language and date filters, query categories, browser information, and IP addresses. User sessions—defined as groups of queries from a single individual—were monitored primarily through cookies; if cookies were disabled, identification relied on IP addresses and browser data, although this method was less precise for users connected via large ISPs.
Business transactions
In 1996, AltaVista became the exclusive search engine provider for Yahoo!. Following Digital Equipment Corporation’s acquisition by Compaq in 1998, Compaq transformed AltaVista into a web portal aimed at competing with Yahoo!, incorporating features like online shopping and complimentary email services under the leadership of CEO Rod Schrock. In June 1998, Compaq invested $3.3 million to acquire the altavista.com domain name, originally registered by ATI cofounder Jack Marshall.
By June 1999, Compaq divested a controlling interest in AltaVista to CMGI, an internet investment company. CMGI intended to launch an initial public offering in April 2000 but withdrew plans after the collapse of the dot-com bubble. The portal approach did not succeed, resulting in a decline in market share to Google. After undergoing layoffs and leadership restructuring, AltaVista shifted its focus back to enhancing search quality and revamped its user interface by 2002.
In February 2003, Overture Services purchased AltaVista for $140 million; subsequently, Yahoo! acquired Overture in July 2003. Following these acquisitions, AltaVista utilized the same search index as Yahoo! Search.
Internal documents leaked in December 2010 exposed Yahoo!’s intention to discontinue AltaVista as part of a larger consolidation strategy.
Free services
AltaVista introduced Babel Fish, an online machine translation service capable of translating text or entire webpages across numerous languages. This service was superseded by Yahoo! Babel Fish in May 2008 and currently redirects users to Bing’s translation platform.
Additionally, AltaVista maintained a free email service hosting approximately 200,000 active accounts under the "altavista.com" domain until its closure in March 2002. While US-based accounts were terminated, others were transferred to Mail.com.
First CAPTCHA system
AltaVista was the pioneer behind the first functional CAPTCHA system designed to prevent malicious automated bots from registering fraudulent accounts and submitting unauthorized URLs to its search engine.
Shutdown
Yahoo! announced on June 28, 2013, that AltaVista would cease operations on July 8, 2013. Since then, attempts to access AltaVista’s homepage have been redirected to Yahoo!’s primary website.