I've said this before: I dearly miss Alta Vista. It indexed, but the user had to provide the ranking, which required actually thinking about what was wanted.

I've said this before: I dearly miss Alta Vista. It indexed, but the user had to provide the ranking, which required actually thinking about what was wanted. I would construct searches of the pattern (word OR word) And (word NEAR word) with great success. Naturally Google, requiring far less thinking to use, won.