Mar 16, 2001 05:56 PM
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Altavista.com is a pretty good and efficient search site, and one of the most popular available today. The main page itself is uncluttered with very few images and mostly has related text links, so the pages load quickly enough.
Your search can be made simply by tapping in a few words in the big search box at the top of the screen, or you can look through the various categories listed below it.
The main search box gives you a few options. You can decide whether to switch the family filter on or off and you can choose the language. You can also choose how you want to have your search results displayed, to include various information such as description, web page size and URL, date last modified, number of results to be displayed and related pages etc. And once you’ve changed your settings, an example is given of a search result incorporating all the settings you have just requested which is a nice useful feature.
The search facility itself is excellent, as I discovered when I typed in a few examples to try it out. I started by searching for my own website and within seconds my page was displayed including links to all other sites that have ‘linked’ with mine. I opted to have 10 results displayed only, and the top eight were all relevant and useful, the final two being general sites on a similar theme but not actually related to my own site. You also have the option to extend your search from the results page, including shopping links for your item, a person search using WorldPages.com, find Yellow Page listings and auction listings if appropriate.
Out of sheer curiosity, I then searched for my own name to see what the site would throw up, and again, the first five links produced were relevant to my own website including an interesting ‘You can email Louise using this form’ link and a link to the genealogy page where I store my family tree.
I then played around with some more general topics and the search results were on the whole pretty good, but there were a good few unrelated sites and rather too many dead links. But generally, the first result was the most accurate and the next 3 to 5 results were very relevant and I found what I was looking for quite quickly.
Overall, the search engine at altavista is very good, especially if you are very specific in your search and avoid subjects that are too broad. But even with those, you can take advantage of the advanced search facilities to rule out the dead wood and find the information you need. And its speed is impressive, almost on a par with that of https://google.com, my favourite search engine for speed alone. Of all the search engines currently available, I would find it hard to choose between this and Google as the best, but altavista probably gives you more options currently.
