AltaVista
- “Alta Vista” (with a space) redirects here. For other uses see Alta Vista (disambiguation)
The name AltaVista refers both to an Internet search engine company and to that company’s search engine product.
Birth
AltaVista was started by Digital Equipment Corporation employee volunteers who were trying to provide services to make finding files on the public network easier.[citation needed] AltaVista was publicly launched as an internet search engine on 15 December, 1995 at http://altavista.digital.com.[1][2]
At launch, the service had two innovations which set it ahead of the other search engines. It used a fast, multi-threaded crawler (Scooter) which could cover a lot more Web pages than were believed to exist and an efficient search back-end running on advanced hardware. As of 1998, it used 20 multi-processor machines using DEC’s then-new Alpha processor. Each machine had 130GB of RAM, 500GB of hard disk space and received 13 million queries per day.[3] This made AltaVista the first searchable, full-text database of a large part of the World Wide Web.
Business Transactions
In 1996, AltaVista became the exclusive provider of search results for Yahoo!. In 1998, Digital was sold to Compaq and in 1999, Compaq relaunched AltaVista as a web portal, hoping to compete with Yahoo!. Under CEO Rod Schrock, AltaVista abandoned its streamlined search page and focused on features like shopping and free email.[4] In June of the same year, Compaq paid AltaVista Technology Incorporated (“ATI”) US$ 3.3 million for the domain name altavista.com — Jack Marshall, cofounder of ATI, had registered the name in 1994.
In June of 1999, Compaq sold a majority stake in AltaVista to CMGI, an internet investment company.[5] CMGI filed for an initial public offering for AltaVista to take place in April 2000, but as the internet bubble collapsed, the IPO was cancelled.[6] Meanwhile, it became clear that AltaVista’s portal strategy was unsuccessful, and the search service began losing market share, especially to Google. After a series of layoffs and several management changes, AltaVista gradually shed its portal features and refocused on search. By 2002, AltaVista had improved the quality and freshness of its results and redesigned its user interface.[7]
In February 2003, AltaVista was bought by Overture Services, Inc.[8] In October 2003, Overture itself was taken over by Yahoo!. In Aug. 2004, shortly after Yahoo!’s acquisition, the AltaVista site started using the Yahoo! Search technology.
Free services
AltaVista provides a free translation service, branded Babel Fish, which automatically translates text between several world languages.
See also
References
- ^ Lewis, Peter H. (1995-12-18), "Digital Equipment Offers Web Browsers Its ‘Super Spider’", The New York Times: Late Edition - Final, Section D, Page 4, Column 3, <http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60B14FF3F5D0C7B8DDDAB0994DD494D81>
- ^ Digital Press and Analysts News (1995-12-15). "Digital Develops Internet’s First ‘Super Spider’". biz.digital.announce. (Google Groups). Retrieved on 2007-02-26.
- ^ Ricardo Baeza-Yates and Berthier Ribeiro-Neto (1999). Modern Information Retrieval. Addison-Wesley/ACM Press, pp. 374, 390.
- ^ Kopytoff, Verne (2000-03-27), "AltaVista Switches Web Portal Into High Gear", San Francisco Chronicle: C-1, <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2000/03/27/BU90210.DTL&hw=altavista&sn=001&sc=1000>
- ^ Afzali, Cyrus (1999-06-29), "CMGI Acquires 83 Percent of AltaVista for $2.3 Billion", internet.com, <http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/147101>
- ^ Barnes, Cecily (2001-01-10), "AltaVista cancels proposed IPO", news.com, <http://www.news.com/2100-1023-250836.html>
- ^ Glasner, Joanna (2002-11-13), "AltaVista Makeover: A Better View", Wired, <http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2002/11/56335>
- ^ Hansell, Saul (2003-02-19), "Overture Services to Buy AltaVista for $140 Million", The New York Times, <http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9403E5DF173DF93AA25751C0A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink>
External links
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