Yahoo shuts down internet relic AltaVista
On Monday, its owner Yahoo sent AltaVista.com to the Internet graveyard to rest alongside order-almost-anything venture Kozmo.com and the butler from Ask Jeeves.
Once up on a time, there was a popular search engine called AltaVista. It lives no more.
On Monday, its owner Yahoo sent AltaVista.com to the internet graveyard to rest alongside order-almost-anything venture Kozmo.com and the butler from Ask Jeeves.
AltaVista was introduced in 1995, three years before Google was founded. Eclipsed by Google in the early 2000s, AltaVista’s star had already faded by the time Yahoo acquired it as part of its US$1.7 billion (HK$13.2 billion) purchase of Overture Services in July 2003. Overture had bought AltaVista earlier that year from Massachusetts-based CMGI.
Yahoo announced AltaVista’s fate on its Tumblr page late last month. Search industry expert Danny Sullivan likened AltaVista to a bright child neglected by its parents.
“You were loved. You really were,” Sullivan wrote in a blog post eulogising the site. “People did not want to leave you. But despite adding new features, some of which Google copied, you couldn’t keep up with the pace and innovation of that company, which decided against becoming a portal like your corporate masters ordered for you.”
Indeed, AltaVista’s decline began after it expanded to become more like Yahoo, offering a bevy of online services instead of sticking solely with search. By the time the site reversed course, it was too late. Its finances were sinking and Google was on the rise.