AltaVista was an early innovator in the world of internet[4] search engines. Established in 1995 in Palo Alto, California, by researchers from Digital Equipment Corporation, it was the first to offer a searchable, full-text database on the World Wide Web[1]. It quickly garnered popularity, achieving 80 million hits per day within two years. AltaVista introduced several groundbreaking features such as multimedia search and CAPTCHA technology[3], playing a vital part in popularizing web search. It was also a pioneer in online translation[2] services with its Babel Fish application. However, competition from Google[5] led to a decline in its popularity. Acquired by Yahoo in 2003, it was eventually shut down in 2013. Despite its closure, AltaVista’s contributions to internet search technology continue to be recognized today.
AltaVista was a Web search engine established in 1995. It became one of the most-used early search engines, but lost ground to Google and was purchased by Yahoo! in 2003, which retained the brand, but based all AltaVista searches on its own search engine. On July 8, 2013, the service was shut down by Yahoo!, and since then the domain has redirected to Yahoo!'s own search site.
Type of site | Search engine |
---|---|
Available in | Multilingual |
Founded | 1995 |
Headquarters | , |
Key people | Ilene H. Lang, Paul Flaherty, Louis Monier, Michael Burrows, Jeffrey Black |
Parent | Digital Equipment Corporation (1998) Overture Services (2003) Yahoo! (2003–2013) Yahoo! Inc. (2017–present) |
URL | www |
Advertising | Yes |
Registration | No |
Launched | December 15, 1995 |
Current status | Defunct (July 8, 2013 | )