AltaVista Index Trim?

numerous pages dropped from av

[joemann]

I noticed in the few days many pages that were performing well in AV stopped showing up. Further investigating showed they have been dropped from the index altogether. Small sites that had 10 - 20 pages indexed now have 1 or 2. Anyone else notice similar?

[jeremy goodrich]

I don't follow Altavista that closely, since it usually seems that nobody searches with them for what I'm selling. :)

Perhaps as a result of the Overture buy out, they trimmed the database in an attempt to drive up subscriptions to the index?

Wouldn't really be the 1st time a search engine pulled that move, either.

Of course, it could be something else as well.