Does AltaVista matter?

[skateservice]

Hi guys,
Now that google, yahoo and msn are giving better results for search does altavista even matter anymore?

I searched for my site http://www.skateservice.com and found links that were spidered about 6 months ago. Since that time i've changed my CMS and all those 6 month old URLS are dead. The users are just being redirected to my homepage.

Should i even bother trying to figure out how to update my urls with altavista?

[ctabuk]

We have sort of had this debate a few times. It's a bit like asking if Search Engines search other Search Engines by keyword search. Personally if you have good ratings in Alta Vista don't complain. If you think that by optimising for it as a one off, then don't bother as it may affect other SERPS.
Me, I do think that high ratings in other SE's can help, they certainly cannot hurt. The only real question here is -Were you or are you getting clients through it?

[skateservice]

I don't do much traffic from altavista at all.. a few hits a month. I believe it's mainly because they haven't indexed my site in ages.

How can i get my site indexed again?

[virtualcontractor]

Simple way is to resubmit yourself in Alta Vista's Free submissions tool again. It will then spider the site again and go from there. I wouldn't worry about more then that.

Personally it is sad to see the downward dpiral that Alta Vista has gone through...I worked at Alta Vista in the HeyDay and it was great! Too bad it didn't last :(

[skateservice]

i used to love altavista before google took everything over. It was giving me great hits back in the hey day :)

[dburdon]

Skate,

I'm aware that Alta Vista is still no.1 in some countries - Italy for example.

[dharrison]

skate - It was Yahoo who took them over.

One assumes that Yahoo listings would reflect in Altavista, but obviously not.

They still have a submit a site link on both US/UK sites. I'd say use it.

HTH

[skateservice]

ok, thanks :)

[lesterj]

Yahoo did take them over and they get their search results from Yahoo. If you go to their submit a site link it just tells you to submit your site in Yahoo. If you are in Yahoo you should be in Altavista.

[skateservice]

thats what i was thinking. i'm in altavista, but the results are like 6 months old. the spider hasnt visited me in a while as its still showing old pages that are taken down and arent even on my server.

[khurramali]

Alta Vista and Ask Jeeves, both are popular with Students and younger audiences.

Altavista gets its primary results from Yahoo
Altavista gets its directory results from Yahoo Directory
Altavista gets its paid listing from Overture (Yahoo)

[brian.mark]

Yahoo supplies the results, but it isn't necessarily the same index.

AltaVista seems to always have an index that Yahoo hasn't used in a while. That's seemed to have started ever since a certain tool (not naming names here) started using AltaVista for some link popularity stuff. Giving them old data sort of makes the tool useless, so that's one theory I've seen.

I've also heard a few say that Yahoo just bought AltaVista for a few of their cool technologies and they don't really care about keeping the engine itself much. That's another theory.

Personally, I think it's more of a matter of them slowly stripping off the cool tools that were included to add value to Yahoo while not keeping it updated to prevent a resurgence of that engine. Imagine if it took off again - that could actually be a distraction from the core Yahoo business. Some people do still use it, so some data is necessary, but if they can move those people to Yahoo's search then that's a victory for their market share.

Eventually, I think we'll see the demise of those small engines that the big players own. I also think we'll see the rise of some new players down the road, but the technology investment to get an engine that can compete is growing the more features these engines have. I used to play around with my own engine, but there is just too much to do to be competitive any more so that idea has been scrapped for now.

Brian.

[skateservice]

soooo... should i just resubmit to altavista?

[brian.mark]

I don't think AltaVista has an active crawler any longer since Yahoo bought them, so I don't see it doing anything.

Brian