Why did Alta Vista fail?

[lupi]

www.northernlight.com

 

[nageov3t]

because Google, pretty much.

they blew away every other search engine that was out before them.

 

[mrjminer]

Longer to type than Google.

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

Altavista thought they could cash in on their popularity by having each page full of adds and lots of big banners, and by having sponsored results on the first few pages. When Google came with the clean interface, no adds and at that time not even sponsored links Altavista thought people would stay with them because they were used to Altavista. By the time they noticed it wasn't working it was far too late.

 

[mammador]

remember yahoo had a search engine too...wow those late 90s/1.0 days were sweet...lol..

I think Google simply had/has a better interface, yahoo and altavista had to log in/register links...too much effort. Obviously Google has taken time to make algorithms that search the Web for links, less hassle for firms, individuals, etc.

I think many of the early Web's giants in search, e-mail, etc. simply coasted and were taken aback by competitors' innovations. Kind of like hotmail was the biggest at one time until Gmail, and AOL as an ISP for a time.

 

[shortylickens]

I seem to recall google was a shitload faster and actually gave you the results you wanted as opposed to a mess.

 

[Eug]

As mentioned, Google was better. But also IIRC, Google also negotiated a bunch of relationships with browsers so that it was the default search engine.

And eventually babelfish was AltaVista's only saving grace, but Google eventually beat them in that too with Google Translate.

 

[Arcadio]

I remember using Yahoo!, Excite, Altavista, and Lycos back in the day.

 

[Hacp]

Google was just better. I remember the general time I transitioned. It was either 97 or 98.

 

[Wyndru]

Yandex came along.

 

[mmntech]

http://www.excite.com/

Haha, wow. I remember Excite. Looks like they're still stuck in 2002, Yet someone's still paying to keep it up there and update the info.

They've fared a bit better in Europe though.
http://www.excite.co.uk/

 

[Linflas]

It was Compaq'd after they purchased DEC.

 

[zinfamous]

The only reason that goog prevailed is that the other search engines became so heavily laden with ads, flashing messages, pop ups and pop outs, that it was a big turn off. They were crowed and complicated 'portals'.

Goog was simple, with no ads on the homepage. It was just a tool.

Now of course its a huge monster. 🙁

Um...astonishingly inaccurate.

 

[Newell Steamer]

Because their CEOs didn't know how to use search engines; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltaVista

Also, I remember my friend swinging his dick all over the place about how he uses Alta Vista and how it's so much better than anything ever created in all of time.

I think I tried Alta Vista once and went back to Google.

 

[Ns1]

Because their CEOs didn't know how to use search engines; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltaVista

Also, I remember my friend swinging his dick all over the place about how he uses Alta Vista and how it's so much better than anything ever created in all of time.

I think I tried Alta Vista once and went back to Google.

That's the thing though - AV was big before Google. Google did to AV what Ford did to buggy whips.

 

[Newell Steamer]

That's the thing though - AV was big before Google. Google did to AV what Ford did to buggy whips.

I used yahoo then google. When google came out, I was all over it. And that is when AV was brought to my attention by said friend.

 

[Oyeve]

Because it was fun to say "let me google that for you" than saying "let AV that for you".

BTW, Excite is still my home page.

 

[Fritzo]

I suspect there is an interesting story somewhere behind why they failed. They were at the top of the pack, but didn't adapt and monetize as needed to stay competitive.

This is it exactly. They didn't find a way to monetize their data to improve themselves and fell behind the competition. They also got a darker "porn and pirating" vibe stuck to them which hurt them in the end.

 

[IronWing]

It used to be the big search engine. What happened?

At the Bilderberg meeting held at Bern D'ba Kon, South Africa in June, 1976 the Group of Nine determined that the pre-nacent Alta Vista would become too powerful and a threat to the Rothchild's planned takeover of the internet via their Goggles surveillance program. The Bilderbergs sent Grand Master Garry Kasparov as the wizard to destroy Alta Vista, which he completed.

 

[BurnItDwn]

altavista was great in the 90s. They had search engine, translate, and several other web services.. but they were pretty stagnant. They didn't have the marketing push/power of google. They simply fell behind and then never got their bearings again.

 

[ultimatebob]

Because their CEOs didn't know how to use search engines; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltaVista

Also, I remember my friend swinging his dick all over the place about how he uses Alta Vista and how it's so much better than anything ever created in all of time.

I think I tried Alta Vista once and went back to Google.

In other words, it's yet another company that Yahoo bought and screwed up.

 

[alkemyst]

Yeah as others have said, Google just proved to dominate the engine market and still does.

 

[lamedude]

Pentiums got fast enough to crawl the entire web?

 

[Remobz]

I do remember sitting in middle school and them trying to teach us proper web search technique by using brackets, wildcards, etc. All that stuff is a lost art now. We even used to make "sites" using Hyper Card.

When I was going to high school in the 1980's we had no clue what a computer was let alone a search engine. Now, my young nephews know all that stuff by the age of 14.

Different times indeed.

 

[alkemyst]

When I was going to high school in the 1980's we had no clue what a computer was let alone a search engine. Now, my young nephews know all that stuff by the age of 14.

Different times indeed.

What kind of high school? I had an apple at home by 1983 and was using them in the classroom in even 5th grade / early 80s