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Google did not really do anything THAT different than Alta Vista - they just did it better, cleaner, and with less junk on your screen. The results were better,

Google did not really do anything THAT different than Alta Vista - they just did it better, cleaner, and with less junk on your screen. The results were better, they obviously had a better algo, and they didnt blast you with ads. They also (from what I remember) had some early and easy to use search modifiers for the general public (like quotes). Unfortunately now this has trended toward the opposite as they destroyed all their competition. I am hoping something like Kagi Search succeeds so we at least have more options.

WalterBright 4y ago
Being an Alta Vista user before Google, one search with Google ended my use of Alta Vista. Yes, it was THAT different.
- lupire 4y ago
  Th difference was that Google didn't optimize search to sell ads, which is the opposite of your original comment.
  - andsoitis 4y ago
    Is there a search engine today that, in your view, provides better search results than Google? It sounds like you’re implying that.
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    Google's results (in 1999) were relevant, the best results were on the first page (and very often in the first position), simple search terms worked (I'd long since mastered complex AltaVista search queries, and still had to dig through pages of results for relevant hits). Hell, I remember when AltaVista first appeared --- I was at a conference where DEC were demoing their 64-bit Ultrix at the time, which was what permitted the search index to be held in memory in the first place (AV's secret to speed). Google simply blew it out of the water. That said, that was a very long time ago, and was a very different Google.
  - origin_path 4y ago
    No, the differences were fundamental. AltaVista was architecturally very different, independent of ads. It's a long time ago but if I recall correctly, AltaVista: - Ran on a tiny handful of big iron machines. It was actually built as an advert for ultra-high end server hardware (from DEC I think?). It couldn't scale up index size as a result. Google used lots of cheap Linux machines with distributed algorithms, which could fit the entire index in RAM. - Partly as a consequence, relied mostly on meta keywords rather than what was actually in the page. But site authors were SEO-ing the meta keywords like crazy and they were often irrelevant. - Didn't have any global ranking function like PageRank. Result was Google's ranking was way better, and they could serve way faster, and they could scale up much more easily.
sigstoat 4y ago
> Google did not really do anything THAT different than Alta Vista > The results were better, they obviously had a better algo i'm with walter, i remember using altavista. google was _shockingly_ better. nobody tried google and said "bah i'm sticking with altavista". > Unfortunately now this has trended toward the opposite as they destroyed all their competition i certainly agree that they've deteriorated.
SanjayMehta 4y ago
The only thing I missed about Altavista was their desktop search app for Windows. This was long before search got built into the OS.
dredmorbius 4y ago
If anything, AltaVista's query modifiers and logic were at least as sophisticated if not more so than Google's. Google's ranking was so much better that you simply didn't need the complex queries to get vastly superior results. Over the intervening 23 years or so, Google's lost significant ground on both factors --- its ranking no longer produces high-relevance results, and it's self-sabotaged its own syntax weaking that angle as well.

WalterBright 4y ago

Being an Alta Vista user before Google, one search with Google ended my use of Alta Vista. Yes, it was THAT different.

lupire 4y ago
Th difference was that Google didn't optimize search to sell ads, which is the opposite of your original comment.
- andsoitis 4y ago
  Is there a search engine today that, in your view, provides better search results than Google? It sounds like you’re implying that.
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  Google's results (in 1999) were relevant, the best results were on the first page (and very often in the first position), simple search terms worked (I'd long since mastered complex AltaVista search queries, and still had to dig through pages of results for relevant hits). Hell, I remember when AltaVista first appeared --- I was at a conference where DEC were demoing their 64-bit Ultrix at the time, which was what permitted the search index to be held in memory in the first place (AV's secret to speed). Google simply blew it out of the water. That said, that was a very long time ago, and was a very different Google.
- origin_path 4y ago
  No, the differences were fundamental. AltaVista was architecturally very different, independent of ads. It's a long time ago but if I recall correctly, AltaVista: - Ran on a tiny handful of big iron machines. It was actually built as an advert for ultra-high end server hardware (from DEC I think?). It couldn't scale up index size as a result. Google used lots of cheap Linux machines with distributed algorithms, which could fit the entire index in RAM. - Partly as a consequence, relied mostly on meta keywords rather than what was actually in the page. But site authors were SEO-ing the meta keywords like crazy and they were often irrelevant. - Didn't have any global ranking function like PageRank. Result was Google's ranking was way better, and they could serve way faster, and they could scale up much more easily.

sigstoat 4y ago

> Google did not really do anything THAT different than Alta Vista > The results were better, they obviously had a better algo i'm with walter, i remember using altavista. google was _shockingly_ better. nobody tried google and said "bah i'm sticking with altavista". > Unfortunately now this has trended toward the opposite as they destroyed all their competition i certainly agree that they've deteriorated.

SanjayMehta 4y ago

The only thing I missed about Altavista was their desktop search app for Windows. This was long before search got built into the OS.

dredmorbius 4y ago

If anything, AltaVista's query modifiers and logic were at least as sophisticated if not more so than Google's. Google's ranking was so much better that you simply didn't need the complex queries to get vastly superior results. Over the intervening 23 years or so, Google's lost significant ground on both factors --- its ranking no longer produces high-relevance results, and it's self-sabotaged its own syntax weaking that angle as well.