Alltheweb and AltaVista: spot the difference

imagesearch

[voelspriet]

Yahoo [docs.yahoo.com] warned us: buying Overture is all about marketing. Since today, the image search of AltaVista and Alltheweb are producing exactly the same results, as I discovered [voelspriet2.nl] tonight. More bad news: AltaVista doesn't update the index as much as before. Alltheweb dropped over 200 news sources from the News finder, including 100 European papers.

[robertskelton]

Does anyone know which of the two image indexes is now being used, or did they merge them?

Lycos, which uses AlltheWeb, is also showing the same results

[Rumbas]

Good find voelsprint. Thanks!

>image search

Starting there, just a matter of time before we seen one index. Maybe before X-mas?

[Essex_boy]

Suspected that this was the case last night.

[kanetrain]

That's not good news... this could indicate that Yahoo is going to move toward one big search engine (probably glorified Inktomi) rather than keeping all of them separate and allowing yahoo searchers the opportunity to pick which one they want. Bummer.

[Rumbas]

>toward one big search engine
Sure, they can only serve one kind if serps and I'm pretty sure they wont go meta search.

Word on the street is neither of them will survive as seperate se's through 2004.

[steveb]

I certainly hope they combine to one search engine? Why on earth would they keep more than one? "Hey, let's make a search engine, then let's also have a worse search engine around." Makes no sense. Having a test or new technology engine, yeas that would be sensible. But separate AV and Ink would be pointless.

[jesd]

"Hey, let's make a search engine, then let's also have a worse search engine around." Makes no sense

I totally agree. If they converge into one engine, does that not make it easier for the advertisers/sellers to update and control listings too? That makes money. Thats why it is there.

[Bobby]

Why on earth would they keep more than one?

One reason might be to select the best of both worlds, sort of like what meta crawlers do.

It wouldn't surprise me to see Yahoo! presenting results that are a cross between Altavista, Alltheweb and Google while mixing in directory results. Seems like a killer combination to me.

[nippi]

I hate inktomi results, why nto use alltheweb or altavista instead? Why is inktomi considered better and the most likely to be used by yahoo?

[takagi]

>> Why is inktomi considered better and the most likely to be used by yahoo?

Dec. 2002: Yahoo buys Inktomi [webmasterworld.com]
Febr. 2003: Overture buys AltaVista [webmasterworld.com]
Febr. 2003: Overture buys AllTheWeb [webmasterworld.com]
July 2003: Yahoo buys Overture [webmasterworld.com]

Probably Yahoo started internally already a long time ago with the integration of the Yahoo & Inktomi sites. That doesn't make Inktomi better, just more likely.

[Rumbas]

Nibbi, nobody tells you what to choose, but you gotta live with what they serve up. I find it resfreshing that you now have an alternativ player. Eggs, baskets you know.

>why nto use alltheweb or altavista instead?

Exactly the point.

That's a goos list takagi, add these to the mix and we have a pretty good idea of what the beast looks like :)

Inktomi on Yahoo Brazil [webmasterworld.com]
Inktomi spotted on Yahoo US [webmasterworld.com]
Inktomi on Yahoo UK [webmasterworld.com]
Yahoo pulls out of Yahoo Scandinavia. [webmasterworld.com]

...is Yahoo Directory dying!? [webmasterworld.com]

BTW folks, we've moved a bit. Now found under Yahoo together with Overture [webmasterworld.com] ;)

[CurtMonash]

Yahoo has nothing to lose by keeping up the AltaVista and AllTheWeb sites. It could even run off of one engine but put a couple of different parameters into the results calculation and, voila, three sites with different SERPS.