4 ms·

The simplicity was nice, but people switched to Google because of PageRank.

• unilynx 1y ago
  and not having sponsored links back then
• oldpersonintx2 1y ago
  right, but they could have polluted the google.com page with endless garbage based off of the popularity of search....but they didn't for example...they could have dropped some links below the search bar to some homegrown sports site they set up...and that would have become the most popular sports site...its hard for most people to resist that
  • TheOtherHobbes 1y ago
    You have a point. Here's what Alta Vista looked like. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltaVista https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltaVista Google's simplicity and clarity became part of the brand. No one else was doing that at the time. Even "efficient" designs were maximalist, so extreme minimalism with a splash of colour was a real innovation.
    • giantrobot 1y ago
      When AltaVista first appeared its landing page was much sparser than that. Even a year earlier [0] its homepage was pretty sparse and simple. Unfortunately AltaVista got hit with the web portal bug and the site got more bloated. Unfortunately the search also got worse as spammers figured out how to game its search algorithms. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/19980423064646/http://altavista.digital.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/19980423064646/http://altavista....