Search is good again
January 19, 2024 7:00 AM Subscribe
Oh hell, they're a member of a webring. BRB, gotta click.
posted by fiercekitten at 7:31 AM on January 19 [6 favorites]
posted by fiercekitten at 7:31 AM on January 19 [6 favorites]
I do miss old-style internet browsing. And hand-tooled web pages. And blogging. When things were big enough, but small enough. Fast enough, but slow enough. But some things are still there. Here, for instance.
posted by pracowity at 7:37 AM on January 19 [27 favorites]
posted by pracowity at 7:37 AM on January 19 [27 favorites]
Be still my heart, a website that isn’t optimized for mobile
posted by Going To Maine at 8:27 AM on January 19 [9 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 8:27 AM on January 19 [9 favorites]
A website I made in 1999 is not in their index. And hairyback.com got very popular!
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:27 AM on January 19 [1 favorite]
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:27 AM on January 19 [1 favorite]
I went from being a kind of late adopter of the internet to a web developer over like 2 years (1999-2000). so I got to not only experience but help build that wonderful old web we once loved. webrings!!!! lol. I miss the old days...
posted by supermedusa at 8:33 AM on January 19 [3 favorites]
posted by supermedusa at 8:33 AM on January 19 [3 favorites]
I used to run a web page as a reference for my fellow Japanese translators. It's not directly linked there, but I did find a few pages that did link to it, and was able to navigate to a 2001 version of it. The oldest version in the wayback machine holds up pretty well, all things considered.
posted by adamrice at 8:36 AM on January 19
posted by adamrice at 8:36 AM on January 19
The kids: "Wow that looks like that thing from that Marvel movie where they were in the 90s"
posted by credulous at 9:17 AM on January 19 [2 favorites]
posted by credulous at 9:17 AM on January 19 [2 favorites]
TOP SEARCHESBrings back memories, it does. And how about the presence of OxyContin there, as a sort of harbinger?
Windows - Games - Google - Psion 3 - Flash - Youtube - ZADC - Windows 98
Rancid Band - 1 Man 1 Jar - OxyContin - Music - Recipe - Noticias Chile
Cardcaptor Sakura - Anime - Yggdrasil - World War 2
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 9:18 AM on January 19
Drill down into it a bit and you realize it's a facade slapped onto the Wayback Machine. Apparently it has a copy of AltaVista's index of sites, and it has mapped those onto web.archive.org?
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 9:22 AM on January 19 [5 favorites]
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 9:22 AM on January 19 [5 favorites]
i’ll accept it.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 9:32 AM on January 19 [7 favorites]
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 9:32 AM on January 19 [7 favorites]
A website I made in 1999 is not in their index.
Yeah, a website I made in around 1996 or 1997 is in there, but not 1999, it must be set chronologically somewhere in that gap.
Holy crow, I've been futzing with HTML for almost thirty years
posted by AzraelBrown at 9:47 AM on January 19
Yeah, a website I made in around 1996 or 1997 is in there, but not 1999, it must be set chronologically somewhere in that gap.
Holy crow, I've been futzing with HTML for almost thirty years
posted by AzraelBrown at 9:47 AM on January 19
1995, yo. My first live web page was (not kidding) literally written by hand on a piece of paper, including all the < and > and etc., then transcribed into a text file, saved to a floppy disk, then uploaded to my web space via FTP from a beige box running macOS 7 in a campus computer lab.
That site has migrated hosting, but still exists (albeit in significantly different design aesthetic). It was in a webring at one point, I think, and for a brief shining moment was in the top 5 Google results for an esoteric keyword.
I no longer use pencil and paper for my web design, but I never progressed past text editor, because I am a curmudgeon, it seems.
posted by caution live frogs at 10:59 AM on January 19 [9 favorites]
That site has migrated hosting, but still exists (albeit in significantly different design aesthetic). It was in a webring at one point, I think, and for a brief shining moment was in the top 5 Google results for an esoteric keyword.
I no longer use pencil and paper for my web design, but I never progressed past text editor, because I am a curmudgeon, it seems.
posted by caution live frogs at 10:59 AM on January 19 [9 favorites]
They're probably running this inside a shoebox with couple Raspberry Pis or whatever it is the kids are using these days. You think you're so cool?! Get it running on a VAX!!
But seriously, AltaVista was some excellent marketing for the DEC Alpha. For a short while, at least.
As of 1998, it used 20 multi-processor machines using DEC's 64-bit Alpha processor. Together, the back-end machines had 130 GB of RAM and 500 GB of hard disk drive space, and received 13 million queries every day.[12] Another distinguishing feature of AltaVista was its minimalistic interface, which was lost when it became a Web portal, but regained when it refocused its efforts on its search function. It also allowed the user to limit search results from a domain, reducing the likelihood of multiple results from the same source.
AltaVista's site was an immediate success. Traffic increased steadily from 300,000 hits on the first day to more than 80 million hits per day two years later. The ability to search the Web, and AltaVista's service in particular, became the subject of numerous articles and even some books.[4] The AltaVista site became one of the top destinations on the Web, and in 1997 it earned US$50 million in sponsorship revenue.[13] It was the 11th most visited Web site in 1998 and in 2000.
...
In June 1999, Compaq sold a majority stake in AltaVista to CMGI, an Internet investment company.[19] CMGI filed for an initial public offering (IPO) for AltaVista to take place in April 2000, but when the Internet bubble collapsed, the IPO was cancelled.[20] Meanwhile, it became clear that AltaVista's Web portal strategy was unsuccessful, and the search service began losing market share, especially to Google. After a series of layoffs and several management changes, AltaVista gradually shed its portal features and refocused on search. By 2002, AltaVista had improved the quality and freshness of its results and redesigned its user interface.
In February 2003, AltaVista was bought by Overture Services, Inc. for $140 million.[22] In July 2003, Overture was taken over by Yahoo!.[23] After Yahoo! purchased Overture, AltaVista used the same search index as Yahoo! Search - the same search engine it had provided results to previously.[2]
In December 2010, a Yahoo! employee leaked PowerPoint slides indicating that the search engine would shut down as part of a consolidation at Yahoo!
Thanks for the post, this brought back a lot of memories.
posted by jerome powell buys his sweatbands in bulk only at 11:07 AM on January 19 [4 favorites]
But seriously, AltaVista was some excellent marketing for the DEC Alpha. For a short while, at least.
As of 1998, it used 20 multi-processor machines using DEC's 64-bit Alpha processor. Together, the back-end machines had 130 GB of RAM and 500 GB of hard disk drive space, and received 13 million queries every day.[12] Another distinguishing feature of AltaVista was its minimalistic interface, which was lost when it became a Web portal, but regained when it refocused its efforts on its search function. It also allowed the user to limit search results from a domain, reducing the likelihood of multiple results from the same source.
AltaVista's site was an immediate success. Traffic increased steadily from 300,000 hits on the first day to more than 80 million hits per day two years later. The ability to search the Web, and AltaVista's service in particular, became the subject of numerous articles and even some books.[4] The AltaVista site became one of the top destinations on the Web, and in 1997 it earned US$50 million in sponsorship revenue.[13] It was the 11th most visited Web site in 1998 and in 2000.
...
In June 1999, Compaq sold a majority stake in AltaVista to CMGI, an Internet investment company.[19] CMGI filed for an initial public offering (IPO) for AltaVista to take place in April 2000, but when the Internet bubble collapsed, the IPO was cancelled.[20] Meanwhile, it became clear that AltaVista's Web portal strategy was unsuccessful, and the search service began losing market share, especially to Google. After a series of layoffs and several management changes, AltaVista gradually shed its portal features and refocused on search. By 2002, AltaVista had improved the quality and freshness of its results and redesigned its user interface.
In February 2003, AltaVista was bought by Overture Services, Inc. for $140 million.[22] In July 2003, Overture was taken over by Yahoo!.[23] After Yahoo! purchased Overture, AltaVista used the same search index as Yahoo! Search - the same search engine it had provided results to previously.[2]
In December 2010, a Yahoo! employee leaked PowerPoint slides indicating that the search engine would shut down as part of a consolidation at Yahoo!
Thanks for the post, this brought back a lot of memories.
posted by jerome powell buys his sweatbands in bulk only at 11:07 AM on January 19 [4 favorites]
I bless AltaVista for teaching me about boolean searches. Such a quiet, helpful thing to know, and now required if I want to find anything remotely helpful using Google—how the turntables have turned!
posted by smirkette at 11:12 AM on January 19 [1 favorite]
posted by smirkette at 11:12 AM on January 19 [1 favorite]
> i’ll accept it.
upon further consideration: i can't accept altavista
we'll need lycos i'm afraid.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 12:27 PM on January 19 [1 favorite]
upon further consideration: i can't accept altavista
we'll need lycos i'm afraid.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 12:27 PM on January 19 [1 favorite]
lycoa.com is still there. "MAIL TRIPOD DOMAINS WEATHER ANGELFIRE"
And they sell mugs, but their mascot is a frickin dog instead of a spider?
posted by away for regrooving at 12:52 PM on January 19
And they sell mugs, but their mascot is a frickin dog instead of a spider?
posted by away for regrooving at 12:52 PM on January 19
You know, google sucks way, way more than it used to, no question about that, but I'm still going to die on the hill that anyone who thinks altavista and friends were better than even current google is viewing the past with some incredibly rose coloured glasses.
posted by jaymzjulian at 1:43 PM on January 19
posted by jaymzjulian at 1:43 PM on January 19
To be fair though, I really miss the old web, and the style of it particularly. Roadkills r us, Bowling Hell, suck.com, etc, etc. To be 16 and just discovering that world for the first time...
posted by jaymzjulian at 2:04 PM on January 19 [2 favorites]
posted by jaymzjulian at 2:04 PM on January 19 [2 favorites]
There was a time in the 1990s when my websites were the first result on Yahoo! for "scurvy" and "booty girl." Neither seems to show up on this site.
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:42 PM on January 19
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:42 PM on January 19
altavista and friends were better than even current google
Quick use of Old a'Vista for 'gardening tips' - all the first several results are angelfire, tripod, and geocities, with fantastic, handwritten tips by regular actual gardeners, plus a listing for Mike McGrath's book on tomatoes.
Quick check on Google for the same: a page full of top-fifteen lists that are all generic material, way-overproduced, complete with ads and useless pictures.
Take your pick.
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 2:50 PM on January 19 [9 favorites]
Quick use of Old a'Vista for 'gardening tips' - all the first several results are angelfire, tripod, and geocities, with fantastic, handwritten tips by regular actual gardeners, plus a listing for Mike McGrath's book on tomatoes.
Quick check on Google for the same: a page full of top-fifteen lists that are all generic material, way-overproduced, complete with ads and useless pictures.
Take your pick.
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 2:50 PM on January 19 [9 favorites]
I did a couple searches and what struck me were all the lovely, pink, sparkly fan pages produced by women and girls.
posted by tigrrrlily at 3:01 PM on January 19 [2 favorites]
posted by tigrrrlily at 3:01 PM on January 19 [2 favorites]
RIP my old Geocities page. Paris! Rainbow wallpaper! I'd give anything to have it archived.
posted by cyndigo at 5:15 PM on January 19
posted by cyndigo at 5:15 PM on January 19
What I remember about Altavista is that it demanded exact keywords. I don't even remember if it had boolean operators at the start, and definitely no fancy spelling correction stuff.
posted by credulous at 5:47 PM on January 19
posted by credulous at 5:47 PM on January 19
I miss that. I miss a search engine returning results with the exact string you gave it, not what it thought you meant, or ought to have meant or whatever.
posted by Dysk at 10:58 PM on January 19 [4 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 10:58 PM on January 19 [4 favorites]
cyndigo, there's multiple Geocities archival projects on the web. It might be out there waiting for you to find it!
posted by JHarris at 9:05 PM on January 21
posted by JHarris at 9:05 PM on January 21
Brings back memories of well.com and Whole Earth Review. I wish I could remember my CompuServe address.
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 8:04 AM on January 22 [1 favorite]
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 8:04 AM on January 22 [1 favorite]
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A website I made in 1997 (I was in middle school and if you are imagining something extremely cringe, double the level of cringe you're imagining) is in their index. God is it both very easy and very hard to believe how long ago that was.
posted by potrzebie at 7:30 AM on January 19 [5 favorites]