Altavista, A lot more than a Search Engine
Written: Nov 01 '00
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Altavista – So much more than a Search Engine
Available at http://www.altavista.com or http://www.av.com
As a regular Internet user I thought I would write an epinion about my favorite Search Engine namely that of Altavista.Com.
I know that this isn’t a particularly fashionable or “trendy” search engine to have as your personal favorite but for me it does what it says it will It finds information and fast. Information is available on unlimited amounts of subjects, I have summarized the main headings below for you: -
Arts & Entertainment Movies, Celebrities & Arts
Autos Classic, Buy & Sell & Motorcycles
Computing Internet, Software & Hardware
Connecting Chat, e-mail & Personals
Games Video, Role Playing & Gambling
Health & Fitness Conditions, Medicine & Sexual Health
Library & Resources Education, Reference & Humanities
Lifestyle Books, fashion & Hobbies
Music MP3, Artists & Genres
Personal Relationships, Intimacy & Sex, Home & Real Estates
Shopping Auctions, Mobile/Wireless & WWW Shops
Sports Baseball, Soccer & Football
Travel Destinations, Reservation & Activities
Work & Money Jobs, Small Business & Investing
I think there is something for everyone there but if you like just type in an expression and see what you get. Even the most obscure of subjects e.g. “Natterjack toad” revealed 197 pages. It isn’t the quantity that makes this site so good though it’s the quality. Often I need to search for phrases and it is here in my opinion, that the search is better than the other popular engines - as when I search for phrases I get many relevant results similar to the full phrase I typed.
I find Altavista gives more directly relevant searches than practically all other search engines around.
I will now move on to analyze the other sections.
Specialist Countries
Altavista has specialist country sites, which tailor the site to your own country. E.g. UK is www.altavista.co.uk. Other Sites are available for Australia, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands as well as many others.
Super Searches
Shopping Find Jewllery, watches, new appliances etc and a comparison shop comparing the prices at over 700 online stores.
Entertainment All the news on Will Smith, Matt damon, Britney etc etc
News The latest news stories as they happen
Multimedia
Find Images, MP3/Audio and video. This is exceptionally useful. I locate images all the time to incorporate into my websites. Play your favorite songs using MP3 on the web.
Find It
A range of locating services that can be very useful indeed. Find a home, Find a car, Find a Lawyer, Planet Project, Scoreboard, Romance and MP3.
Services
Services such as Legal Help, Domain Names, Horoscopes and Movie Showtimes.
Tools
Media Player, Submit a Site, Helpdesk, Free Access, Downloads, Book a Flight and Reference.
Rewards
Shop at over 700 online shops with over 8 million products. Earn points for surfing, up to 25 cents per click. See http://shopping.altavista.com/rewards/earn.sdc Earn 1000 points just for signing up.
Free E-Mail Address
Get your own free E-Mail address, use it for whatever you want.
Free Internet Access
Free, unlimited 56K Modem Internet access with a small 600K download. No fees and no usage restrictions.
Translation
Translate a word into French, Italian, German, Portuguese and Spanish.
Radio
Listen to Altavista Radio, over 150 channels, 180000 songs and live 24/7.
Messenger
Downloadable message service, talk to friends in real time chat.
The site also includes horoscopes, weather, polls and loads of other things this epinion just can’t fit in. The best advice I can give is to check it out for yourself.
Searching Tips
Altavista is the best engine on the net “once” you know how to use it. Firstly it is one of the largest Search Engines and has the most unique urls attached to it. It is also the most frequently used Search Engine by Hackers. You ask Why ?
Simply Because if you know how to use it, you can find things fast.
A lot of people use large search criteria and this is the wrong way. This is what you do to find content fast. Use "Quotes" around your topic. Try to think of what the author of the web page stated exactly when he was making their page. Each website has keywords that search engines will look for.
Conclusion
Altavista why not try it. The site has something for everybody. I have it set as my homepage and use it most times I search the Web. Did I convince you that Altavista is more than a Search Engine?, I hope so! The choice is yours but you will not know what you are missing until you have tried it.
Available at http://www.altavista.com or http://www.av.com (They even made that easy).
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
bestpay
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Member: Alan Horton
Location: Bradford, United Kingdom
Reviews written: 21
Trusted by: 17 members
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