While I also prefer Google, AltaVista does reach 17.7% of Web users versus 7.0% for Google.
forbes.com
eCommerce
Don't Count AltaVista Out Yet
Penelope Patsuris, Forbes.com, 10.20.00, 6:09 PM ET
NEW YORK - AltaVista's bid to become a portal years after America
Online and Yahoo! established their supremacy in that arena was
ill-conceived. But that doesn't mean the much-maligned site should be
written off altogether.
Today's resignation by Chief Executive Rod Schrock marks the end of a
bumpy ride for the CMGI-owned outfit. It had for some time been
struggling to make itself a full-service portal by tacking on features like a
wireless shopping service and AltaVista Radio. Schrock had only been on
board since early 1999.
Now that its plans to become a portal have been scrapped, there is an
opportunity for AltaVista to make a fresh start as a pure search engine,
which is where the site first found success. "AltaVista was the Google of
1996," says Search Engine Watch editor Danny Sullivan, referencing the
hot new search site that launched in 1998. "Before that there were Excite,
Yahoo! and Lycos."
In the mid-90s AltaVista changed the whole search landscape by
introducing an index of 20 million documents, while the incumbents each
had just one million. Users loved it because it was able to cast a much
wider net across the Web, generating a breadth and variety of search
results that other sites couldn't. A loyal grassroots following developed.
Of course search is quite different now, with an emphasis not on the
volume of results but on their relevance, which is why Google happens to
have so much buzz. Its engine delivers Web page results that its
algorithms determine to be most relevant by analyzing the number and
quality of other Web pages that are linked to it.
Google may be big with the cyber-cognescenti, but AltaVista is still
reaching a lot more users. While AltaVista reaches 17.7% of Web users,
Google gets just 7%, according to the latest Media Metrix numbers.
Sullivan says AltaVista has a bad rap that its quality search service
doesn't deserve. "Analysts continue to say that AltaVista will never make
it," he says, "but they are only two percentage points behind Excite in
audience reach, and no one bad-mouths Excite."
Throughout its bid to become a portal, AltaVista developed and advanced
its search engine. Although its technology could use some updating, it's
still among the best out there. And search is one of the most frequent
tasks performed by people online, second only to e-mail, so if AltaVista
has good search, people will come to it. "The question is, How will
AltaVista or anyone else make money at it?" says Sullivan.
The good news for AltaVista is that while it was distracted by its run
against AOL (nyse: AOL), Yahoo! (nyse: YHOO) and MSN, other search
sites have been experimenting with a bunch of interesting new business
models. Ask Jeeves (nasdaq: ASKJ) and Google, for instance, are
selling advertisers related but separate links on their search results
pages so users can discern which links have and have not been paid for.
Meanwhile, LookSmart (nasdaq: LOOK) and Inktomi (nasdaq: INKT) are
having Web sites pay to be included in their indices, with no guarantee of
where they will be ranked within search returns.
One of these business models, or any variation thereof, may be just the
angle AltaVista needs to resuscitate its search business. |
