FEB 24, 2000, M2 Communications - AltaVista today announced ambitious
plans to expand its European presence to include an additional 18
countries by the end of the year. AltaVista plans to offer local
content search sites to an estimated 136 million European Internet
users by 2002.
Following the successful launch of www.altavista.de in April 1999 in
Germany - where AltaVista now ranks fifth overall - a fully-fledged
European division was established in October 1999. In the four months
since, country search sites have been launched at an average rate of
one a month - www.altavista.se in October 1999, www.altavista.co.uk in
December 1999, www.altavista.nl and www.altavista.fr in February 2000.
"In every country, AltaVista launches with the largest, freshest index
of local content on the Internet," explains Vesey Crichton, marketing
and strategy director, AltaVista Europe.
The original AltaVista site in California - www.altavista.com -- is
already well known across Europe, with 15 million of its 54 million
users a month coming from European countries. By launching local
country sites with quality local content, AltaVista will offer the most
personalised service on the web to both English and non-English
language speakers.
"Searching for information is the second most popular on-line
activity after email. Every day 100 million searches are performed on
the Web, 35 million of which are processed by AltaVista," says
Crichton. "AltaVista is already the first choice for people looking for
the fastest, most relevant information on the Internet. But the 90% of
Europeans for whom English is not their first language can find today's
Internet experience frustrating. With this move, AltaVista is making it
fast and simple to find local-language search results wherever you live
in Europe, and whatever your language."
Crichton added: "We know that relevance is everything on the Internet
- but there are few companies which, hand on heart, can actually
deliver. AltaVista's country-index strategy shows we are committed to
being the European's first choice for searching the web."
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