chiyo - 7:13 am on Aug 22, 2003 (gmt 0)

I agree ATW results are great in every term we test for...

However, size of the database is to me, only a positive until a certain extent. Im sure there are millions of pages out there that are not useful to anyone to index.

Several years back, I remember a media frenzy about the "best search engine" on the net, (Google was still a baby then). Northern Light was then announced the "biggest" search engine as defined by number of pages indexed, eclipsing AV, Excite, Infoseek by far. It was the first time many in the mainstream had heard of Northern Light, and they got a lot of traffic for a limited time as a result. Look where they are now? In short "index size" is easy for the mainstream searcher to undestand and its easy to write a good headline about for the hacks out there.

Im not arguing against how good ATW is at all. I see their results as on a par and in many cases, superior than Googles at this time. I just question how important "index size" is for any search engine when it could be argued that most pages on the web are crud anyway... from duplicate content to doorway pages to p*rn to just plain poorly written, low credibility material.

To me its how useful the SERPS look to me when i try various queries where i need to get info. On that creitria ATW is very very good, but i doubt if its related to "index" size to any significant extent.

Now "freshness". Thats another important thing too, and ATW is performing well there too.