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Seth, it can't be right, but from my end that's what it feels like... about the same as dogpile. (For me, NBCi has been whipping the crap out of AV for several months now, but that's not typical for most here.)
But there are some ominous signs out there, AV had been my primary choice for search since Digital rolled it out -I gave up on it a few weeks ago and switched to a collage of engines, with Google being first, AV second, etc., etc... Today, Brett posts that he had come to the same decision [webmasterworld.com] -to move on. How many more of us have just finally said "Enough!" and reluctantly chosen to leave an old workhorse that's come up lame?
My to do SE list:
Google
Fast
AV
Ink
Excite(this one may get moved)
Northern Light(may be one day they will produce)
BAsically its Google and Yahoogle right out in front then MSN and partners, then the third tier Lycos - NL - NBCI - AV all bringing in 10 to 20 a day.
AV referrals seem to be coming also from diff url's now - regional AV's altavista.com, altavista.com/search and listings.altavista etc. Make sure you add them all up, but altogether they are penny numbers.
18 months ago, AV returned more referrals than all other major SE's added together.
Our rankings have been fairly static for 12 months on AV, since we took a major hit 12 months back, but that hit does not account for the steady decline 9mths to 3 months ago and the dramatic decline in the last 3 months
I switched to using Google for personal searching habits a while ago... Once I realized AV's kick-@ss update schedule had gone down the tubes. Their update schedule was the only reason I favored them.
I never personally decided to quit using AV, but it just happened gradually as Google gave better and better results. And I'm far from the only one who would need to break a new habit to return to Alta. They've got a big challenge, especially if their cash position is sticky.
SQ (spider quality): The spider must come by frequently and must crawl deep. Must honor robots.txt. The results of spidering must then be rolled into online database quickly.
SR (search engine results page): The SERP must then show relevant results based off the data they have collected from the spider. Summary must give info on whether to click through or not. Page must be pleasant. 404s must be few and far between.
CS (customer service): Response from a human to questions in a quick and reasonable manner. Free and easy submit pages.
Let's call my ranking system the Xoc Scale (XS). It awards an engine up to 5 points for SQ, and 5 more for SR. Now you could also give points for Customer Service (CS), but the End-User (EU) doesn't care much about that, and the EU is picking the SE. So a CS score is placed in parens, but doesn't count toward XS ranking.
EUs are slow to change SEs, but if they continue to get bad results, they eventually decide to change, and they try a few engines, listen to friends, etc. So I believe the Xoc Scale eventually determines which engine they will likely switch to.
Based off this, and my own subjective analysis of my log files, I rate them like this:
1) Google: Spider is excellent, crawls deep. The database takes four weeks to update, which could be better. 4.5SQ. SERP is relevant. Usually the page I'm looking for is in the top few listings, and rarely after position 20. Listings could be a little clearer and allow better information to decide if I want to click-through. 4.5SR. Customer Service seems good and responsive in the one contact I've had with them, although the final outcome of what the engineers did could be slightly better; still they did something to their algorithm based on my request within 4 weeks. 4.5CS. FINAL RANKING: 9.0XS (4.5CS)
2) Fast: Spider is excellent, crawls deep. In my experience it crawls non-PDF files and dynamic content deeper and more frequently than Google. All pages that it finds get indexed. Needs PDF and dynamic content results. 4.5SQ. SR, though, needs a lot of work. The top results are just not relevant and pages that I'm looking for are frequently buried deep. 3.0SR. Submit page is fine, have had no dealings with customer service. Not enough info to rate CS. FINAL RANKING: 7.5XS(?CS)
3) AltaVista: Spider is good when you can get it, but not as good as Google or Fast. Results are slow to make their way into the database. 3.0SQ. Result pages are easy to read, but relevancy has declined a huge amount. 3.0SR. Customer Service got back to me in a few hours on my one contact with them. Submit page works well. 4.5CS (although others may feel different). FINAL RANKING: 6.0XS(4.5CS)
4) Inktomi: Spider is slow. Usually hits my home page once every couple of days, then goes away. Results are even slower to get online. 2SQ. Results page are relatively easy to read, and relevancy seems good, although outdated. 3.5SR. Have had no contact with CS. FINAL RANKING: 5.5XS(?CS)
5) Northern Light: Spider comes by frequently. Crawls moderately deep. Don't have enough info on how frequently it updates the database. 3.0?SQ. I find the SERP hard on the eyes and relevancy is low. 2.5SR No contact with CS. FINAL RANKING: 5.5?XS(?CS)
6) Excite: Spider is slow. Usually hits my home page once every couple of days, then goes away. Results are even slower to get online. 2SQ. Results page allow a lot of spam, and because of slow updates have a lot of 404s. 2.5SR. No contact with CS. 2SQ. FINAL RANKING: 4.5XS(?CS)
Now if Excite is changing their ways with this recent update, I'll rank them higher. They do need a better spam filter.
What do you think?
Edited by: Xoc
Stunned might be the word. Great post!
Keep up the good work XOC :)
I think that the problem for AV stems from the fact that it seems to have taken it's eye off the ball.... some time back it seems to have forgotten that it was a search engine, first and last. When this function started to deteriorate, it started to decline - searchers started to look elsewhere. Maybe general users aren't as dumb as some people think.
The AV symptoms are well documented: The database rarely updates, L$ is in there confusing the hell out of people, Goto.Com adds to this and reduces visible depth, etc. A real mess. I think AV would be in a much healthier position if it HADN'T grabbed the L$ and GoTo monies but HAD focused upon keeping it's own engine top notch (at least it might had retained more of its lifeblood - traffic). Could it be that the regional engines are faring better (at least for me) because they have been less infested by these money grabbers and they actually do sometimes update their databases?
It is sad to see though. The more serious engines there are, the better the net is, IMHO. I would love AV to recover, but given that this is highly unlikely (they will just look for another quick cash grab, like paid submission), it would be nice to see the void filled by another clean engine. FAST will surely continue to grow, but we need more... maybe NL or some others not yet visibly on the scene.
Oh yes, in terms of current traffic, for me AV is now well behind both FAST and Google.
Mr Mackin has posted some good info here [webmasterworld.com] regarding Dogpile Traffic.
BTW, great post Xoc.
