AltaVista Just Switched to Yahoo's Database

Rip av

[WebGuerrilla]

I got to say, this one is kinda tough. Many of us oldtimers cut our SEO teeth on AV. Even though they haven't been a major player in quite some time, it's still sad to see them officially end.

But the positive thing is I'm seeing some differences between AV and Y. Hopefully, they will continue to mix it up a bit.

[tedster]

At least the link: operator still works on AV. With ATW dropping it, I am afraid that backlink checking may get very difficult very soon.

[figment88]

I hope Yahoo incorpates Babelfish into their toolbar.

I'm not going to keep the AV toolbar if the search is the exact same as Yahoo's.

[helenp]

Been trying half an hour,
comes up yahoo window saying page not available......
I am in Spain

[outland88]

The results are practically identical for my areas in MSN, Yahoo, All the Web, Lycos, and AV. Inktomi shows some variation. Whoever said you can’t get enough of a good thing must have not worked for Yahoo.

[Brett_Tabke]

Atleast they left it with a clean interface to use the Yahoo index.

>cut our teeth

Ya, AV was the first engine I ever got a site banned on...

[rfgdxm1]

>Ya, AV was the first engine I ever got a site banned on...

April Fools joke Brett? I just can't believe sir that you are anything other than squeaky clean.

[mack]

AV was the first search engine I ever used.

Sad day.

Funny thing is, from the UK I am seeing pure yahoo results, but at the bottom it says "try your search on yahoo!"
go figure.

Only a matter of time before AV drops the odp in favour of the Yahoo directory.

Mack.

[crobb305]

I see that altavista is using yahoo. However, one of my sites is not showing up in altavista whereas it is in all other yahoo-driven engines. Wonder what the diff is.

[mack]

perhaps flux between different servers or data centers.

Mack.

[sdani]

are you guys actually seeing yahoo results on AV? I am not even able to reach AV's home page.

Sorry, the page you requested was not found.
Please check the URL for proper spelling and capitalization. If you're still having trouble locating a destination on Yahoo!, try visiting the Yahoo! home page (www.yahoo.com), or look through a list of Yahoo!'s online services. Also, you may find what you're looking for if you try searching below.

[mack]

Av.com doesnt work for me.. I have to use altavista.com

AV.com is a yahoo error page currently.

Mack.

[sdani]

Its probably a typo by Yahoo's DNS team.. av.com is pointing to -> [altavsita.com...] (check out VSI instead of VIS)

[Brett_Tabke]

> anything other than squeaky clean.

You couldn't do seo on AV in 98-99 without cloaking. There was so much page jacking and over submitting that you either cloaked or died. And since we had top 5 rankings for most of 98-99 under "MP3" and most top variation, it was a sure bet we were cloaked to the teeth (even heavily practiced poision word cloaking so that if anyone stole the real page, they'd bury them selves with too high a density).

[Kirby]

>You couldn't do seo on AV in 98-99 without cloaking

Makes me feel better to hear that. It was the only way I could get a site do show up back then. I just figured I was a one trick pony who just didnt know the secret handshake.

[outland88]

That's interesting Sdani.

If I type in av.com in the address bar it takes me to what you said. But if you click on the same link below it takes you directly to Alta Vista. Typing av.com the same as below, into the address bar, also leads to a mispelled version
altavsita.com.

[av.com...]

[newwebster]

I just hope that the switch over for Alltheweb and AV means they have a big serp update around the corner. I think Tim Said that they update every two weeks. This weekend will be the end of the second week from the last shakeup they had. Tim would you care to drop us a hint if their is an update coming?

[jetboy_70]

To expand on outland88's post:

Although I understand that Yahoo Search and Inktomi aren't exactly the same, at this stage the correlation between the SERPs is very high.

One or the other is showing on: Yahoo!, Altavista, AllTheWeb, MSN, Hotbot, (Inktomi Pure Search) and as the fill results on Looksmart, Overture and Espotting.

Is this correct? Are we really down to Yahoo! and Google (and Ask Jeeves I guess)?

[max_rk]

I was big fan on AV in early days. It was The Search back then. Same as big G is now. I had AV as home page on my browser for years. Its sad to see it go in smoke. Soon nothing will be left of it just a name.

[WebFisher]

From Eastern Europe I'm currently seeing old AV results for many unrelated searches.

[Warren]

A funny story about AltaVista.

AltaVista used to be my favorite search engine until one day during a 3rd Year programing lab, I was searching for "Motorola 68HC11 emulator". The first result looked promising so I clicked on it.

To my horror, it turned out to be a porn site which launched many pop up windows, just as the lab supervisor - a very straight middle aged guy - walked by. Try explaining that one!

It was my first exposure to hidden text.

[mayor]

Bye Bye Alta Vista with your schizophrenic algo. Bye Bye Scooter with your glutonous appetite. May your pitiful souls rest in peace.

[Alternative Future]

Don't see the point of AV having Try your search on Yahoo!

When it seems to be identical results as so many have pointed out.

-George

[bsand715]

Farewell Old Friend :(

[spaidermen]

As I said in another post, isn't it funny (or sad) that once upon a time Yahoo was powered by Altavista and now it is the other way round? Would you have imagined it back in 1997?

[caine]

There also IP filtering between world and USA, as my UK sites are not coming up.

[hannamyluv]

I really don't know why anyone is surprised. Didn't you hear Tim at the WW confrence say that AV would become a testing ground for Yahoo? They can't very well use it for testing if they don't put their results there. Haven't any of you who do feeds got the call that the AV feed was going away and INK would be it?

It's sad to see AltaVista go, but the writing was on the wall and Y! was using a big, old red marker.

[DaveN]

this is not the new yahoo it a new INKTOMI ..... will run more tests but I see some old ink problems still there.....(cough pesky 301)

DaveN

[outland88]

If it had been me leading the marketing efforts at Yahoo I would have let AV, ATW, and Yahoo all maintain their previous distinct results. People like to say they found that diamond in the rough by searching various engines. Now the public for really the very first time is going to be exposed to a lot of redundancy with distinct SE's per sec. A lot of consumers are going to be thinking its a fixed game with results. They'll compare. The word cahoots will pop into their minds. Magazines could pop up all over the place saying why visit such and such when so and so's got the same thing.

In the short term advertising revenues may go up but individual web site sales could remain flat. Search engines with redundant results is all or nothing strategy that could backfire for the Internet as a whole. The vast majority of the public is not going to be visiting forums to find out if we think its redundant. They'll draw their own conclusions.

[DaveN]

outland88 and google powering everything was good..........nah

DaveN