Is it time to move Alta and Ink into the "also rans" forum?

Forum Moderators: open

Message Too Old, No Replies

Is it time to move Alta and Ink into the "also rans" forum?

Brett_Tabke

8:01 pm on May 11, 2001 (gmt 0)

Interesting story here about alta being a second string slacker/also ran:
[washingtonpost.com...]

rcjordan

8:09 pm on May 11, 2001 (gmt 0)

Heh! I just referenced that article in a private discussion. (Sad, even the newspapers are razzin' her.) Yes, it's time to demote ol' AV. It's a part of the game, but certainly not a linchpin.

seth_wilde

10:12 pm on May 11, 2001 (gmt 0)

Their financial stability as a company isn't looking good, but as a reffer I think their still worthwhile. I still get more traffic from AV than Hotbot and Lycos combined

engine

10:16 pm on May 11, 2001 (gmt 0)

I agree Seth. AV still delivers traffic. Lets talk it up so we don't lose it. Too much negative talk doesn't help anyone.

rcjordan

10:19 pm on May 11, 2001 (gmt 0)

We're going to start a 12-step program for you; "Coping with AV withdrawal.'

Mike_Mackin

10:22 pm on May 11, 2001 (gmt 0)

>"Coping with AV withdrawal."

I finshed that program in Mid 2000 after a core site went NADA

mivox

10:35 pm on May 11, 2001 (gmt 0)

"Coping with AV withdrawal."

LOL... I graduated when I realized their update schedule had become nonexistent, and their customer service was even worse. Their new play-our-ransom-note-game-so-we-can-bury-you-in-the-results-anyway submission scheme just clinched it.

toolman

12:28 am on May 12, 2001 (gmt 0)

"We love you AV"

What color token do I get?

jimmykav

9:24 am on May 12, 2001 (gmt 0)

Agreed - i get more traffic from AV than lycos,excite, etc. but to be honest thats not really saying much :-(

Laisha

2:57 pm on May 12, 2001 (gmt 0)

How sad that we are even discussing this! :(

I'd say hold off until they do whatever it is they're about to do.

Jill

5:26 pm on May 12, 2001 (gmt 0)

I'm sorry but I have to agree with Brett. When they started their ransom note site submits I thought it clever and hoped that the sites that were being added to the database might someday surface, but I've not seen one in results since they were picked up. We used to get a lot of traffic from AV, and we do still have quite a few #1 listings for competitive keywords but get very, very few hits from her.

It's painful to see these giants fall. From what I've seen and been reading I don't give AV a lot of hope to pull out of this latest nose dive.

Jill

DaveAtIFG

8:13 pm on May 12, 2001 (gmt 0)

Some of the SERPs appear to be changed in the last few days, the sleeping giant awakens perhaps? The new results are worse then ever but it may be another interim db while they polish whatever they're changing to. I'm willing to give them another month or two before writing them off.

engine

8:31 pm on May 12, 2001 (gmt 0)

>We're going to start a 12-step program for you; "Coping with AV withdrawal.'

Were do I sign up? LOL

Traffic, traffic, traffic. That's what counts.

Bury results, like ink does, will not mean people will pay. Not when Google is delivering!

Fast is wating in the wings...

I'm trying to be optimistic - come on everyone.

Wake up AV - don't lose it, don't disappoint the loyal following.

jeremy goodrich

1:50 pm on May 14, 2001 (gmt 0)

In my mind, they lost it when I started poking around, and noticed they aren't even doing full text indexing.

What does that mean for us as internet professionals?

We can expect them to only list sites by their "term vector" and not by any other tangential keywords, which are also Oh so important.

What does that mean for a user of search services?

Unless you are doing a search for only one or two keywords, you are wasting your time with AV. On top of that, how many of us search in such a novice fashion? I'd be willing to bet the majority of us use google, why? Because they do full text indexing. So does Ink, and I have no respect left for that pile of spam.

:) I'm ranting, and I know it. It just seems ludicrous that after so long in the business, they could revert to being such neanderthals. (spelling? oh, well. It's only AV :) )

john316

1:48 pm on May 16, 2001 (gmt 0)

At the very least, you could could change the description of the AV forum. You currently have:
Altavista
"Altavista is a powerhouse traffic generator. On the webmasters A+ do or die list."

I would hate to see someone new to SEO lose any sleep over AV, if it was do or die, I would have croaked a long time ago.

A better description might be just that:

"Altavista is a search engine that you should not lose any sleep over"

my 2 cents.

georged

1:56 pm on May 16, 2001 (gmt 0)

AV have been in trouble like this before, and pulled it out of the fire. I wouldn't bet against them coming back again, but they are running out of chances.

Eric_Jarvis

4:32 pm on May 16, 2001 (gmt 0)

was going to submit a new entrance to our site to AV today...but just got an error message saying they couldn't find it...the link in the error message worked so I knew it wasn't a typo so I mailed them

got a very nice reply saying they had technical difficulties and please could I be patient...which I can...because it's not my company going down the pan it's theirs

ihelpyou

2:36 pm on May 18, 2001 (gmt 0)

Just noticed something. Do a search on Altavista for the term:

google search engine

Notice the top 4 sites listed. Nothing at all to do with the term except the fact that they ALL have the google search engine box on the page.

Nothing else. hmmmmm

Brett_Tabke

11:05 pm on May 18, 2001 (gmt 0)

That's a cheeky search. Most of the engines mess with each others keywords. Try "google" on Lycos...

Marcia

11:41 pm on May 18, 2001 (gmt 0)

I don't think AV is totally dead yet, at least I certainly hope not. I've always liked them, and it looks like major changes are going on now.

There's precious little from them for the product sites I tend, but with my graphics site, traffic was way down, and is up again, right behind google.

I'd hate to see them go, and hope there's a resurgence.