CATEGORIES //// Zyra's front page //// Search Engines //// site index

Note: This page replaces the old review, the criticisms in which have been made obsolete by the great improvements made by ALTAVISTA to their search engine 2001/05/10!

This page is the personal opinion of a customer. If you think something should be changed, I am open to suggestions. Please e-mail me

Altavista IMPROVED


WELL DONE ALTAVISTA!

If you type in the url of www.altavista.com you will now get a FREE CHOICE of the scope of your search! This is in stark contrast to the situation which used to occur in April 2001 (though I've heard it was different on some machines). What used to happen was that you'd be redirected to a localised region of the world (see the old review for more about this). Now in the NEW IMPROVED ALTAVISTA, you get a global search of the world by default (after all, The Internet is the International Net, isn't it!), but as well as that you also have a free choice of specific localised country searches! This is brilliant as it allows regionalised searching AT YOUR REQUEST, yet abolishes the assumption that you only want to search in the part of the world in which you might happen to live! AND, (and this is something some of the other search engines may need to take into account when considering their own policies), Altavista now searches INDIA and other wide world places. The point of mentioning this is that there is an opinion I have heard spoken of on several occasions that some of the search engines only care to look in the Western World and so only have a limited horizon.

So, WELL DONE ALTAVISTA!

What do you think of THAT? I am well impressed with the improvement. All too often big companies become complacent and adopt a bad policy and stick with it. I'm sure many examples of this can be quoted. But not so Altavista! The problem was remedied and resolved within a very short time!

If you have any comments on this, please e-mail me

Note: If you find the machine still puts you in a country against your will, here's how to patch it up: