AltaVista UK Aesthetics

Work experience boy designs new homepage

[vis]

AV.UK are rotating the old (good clean site) and a new-look site which, at a push, is closer to their US site.

The new site is a real attack-of-the-blue-hyperlinks affair coupled with a controversial move back to a serifed font. Page only fits into 800 vs 700 on the old version and 600 on the US site.

Needless to say, the search submission now diverts to the US ransom note and the view thumbnail images is available on the worldwide results.

I would like to wake up tomorrow and find it was all a bad dream.

[markd]

I wonder if this means we should optimise pages for the .com algo or the .co.uk version.

I have always found vast differences in their indvidual 'preferences'.

Any views?

Thanks

[engine]

Seems to me they are either testing new features in UK/Europe before roll out in USA, as discussed previously, or, they are not coordinating the page layout. The .com has a large area of unused clear space.

Did you notice the figures 24.9.28 in the bottom left corner? They do change - a simple search produced 29.9.28, and another 23.9.28 The av refresh displayed 45.9.28

>I wonder if this means we should optimise pages for the .com algo or the .co.uk version.

I'd stick with a setup that works. If your target audience is uk, make sure you're doing well in av uk
Having said that you can't ignore the av.com entirely.