Around since 1995, this easy-to use search engine was one of the largest and best. While the database is the same as Yahoo!'s, AltaVista retains great flexibility in its advanced search, allowing users to conduct precision searches for specific information by looking for phrases, keywords, case-sensitive matches, and the ability to restrict searches to titles and other elements of documents.
Now owned by Yahoo!, AltaVista's future as a search site and portal remains in question. Although it has drifted back into the search engine pack, AltaVista still offers some outstanding features including the ability to search news, images, and its MP3 audios and its videos remain as unique features not yet available at Yahoo!. AltaVista's image collection and news search tools remain among the best on the Internet. AltaVista continues to use the Open Directory as its directory, but that is likely to change under Yahoo!'s ownership. It has a news headline partnership with the excellent MoreoverTechnologies, a global news/information provider. One of the best features on AltaVista is Babelfish, a translation tool powered by Systran, which lets you translate an entire webpage, up to 150 words in a text box.
AltaVista is very good at retrieving specific phrases. It digs down into the page and finds actual words and phrases from within the full-text of the website. As a result, if you can pin your search down to one word or a unique phrase, you can find it - quickly. It offers a broad range of search functionality and when it returns results, matching search term are highlighted - a time saver.
Two search options are offered: Simple and Advanced. To do a Simple Search, you must submit plus, minus or tilde or quotes to narrow and focus the search. Reading the Help page is suggested. The Advanced Search option requires you to type the actual Boolean operators, and do not forget to use the ranking capability in the Advanced Search mode.
AltaVista has terrific field searching ability. You can search for title and/or URL in both the Simple Search and Advanced Search modes. Restricting by URL will allow you to limit your hits to government or education sites, helpful when credibility is a concern. To use the title search tool, simply write Title:<subject> and you will get sites that have "tree" in their titles.
The image and news search tools have always been excellent. AltaVista is also capable of searching newsgroup postings.
AltaVista offers many unique features, including a photo-finding tool using Corbis' extensive photo library, and a family-friendly version so that you can bar access to pornographic sites. One strong feature of its Advanced Search function is a "sort by" box, allowing you to rank your search terms. You can also add a term to an already-run search by using the "sort by" box, a search trick that is often useful.
AltaVista's Advanced Search engine is one of the few search tools that lets you search by range of dates, helping you find the latest information. Remember: date searching is only approximate. AltaVista was the first search engine to offer a Link Search feature that allows you to find any web pages linked to a particular site. Recently it has changed somewhat; now, to perform a successful link search you must use the full web address, such as link.www.deadlineonline.com. Link searching is a valuable way of conducting competitive intelligence on rival companies, and for evaluating credibility.
AltaVista's language translation capability is excellent. It allows you to translate part or all of a webpage. It also offers country-specific search engines - in 26 countries including Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, India, Korea, and the U.K. All the international information is stored in one master database, so you get the same results, but with your country of choice's material given higher ranking. Another superb option is the world translation keyboard. It allows you to write in another language, making your final, non-native language message grammatically accurate.
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