Altavista was a great showcase on how powerfull servers and internet were at that era: before it, internet was considered something that needed Yellow Pages to

Altavista was a great showcase on how powerfull servers and internet were at that era: before it, internet was considered something that needed Yellow Pages to be viable. With altavista the content gained relevance over the location, suddenly you didn't need to know where to find it, knowing what you wanted was enought. Google was a big step afterwards, showing that even when you know what you want, you might not express it correctly, so having some ranking on results was helpful.