altavista.com

I, like many, had become addicted to GOOGLE. A couple of weeks ago I decided to return to a few of the Search Engines that I had commonly used prior to this. I was very impressed with Altavista. It is very simple and uncluttered, yet managed do its job extremely well.

~~Download Speed~~

This was one aspect of the site that really impressed me. It typically took less than 10 seconds, depending of course on the amount of hits.

~~Advanced Search Features~~

Altavista bore well in this part of its analysis. It is possible to completely customise your search, with options such as;

-Description
-Web Page Size
-Number of Results
-Related Pages
-URL
-Date Last Modified

You can also choose to Search using the Family Filter, which attempts to try and block out any controversial sites, though this cannot be relied on 100%

~~Accuracy of Seach Results~~

Overall I found the links arising from searching on Altavista to be mostly accurate. Very few of the sites were of complete irrelevence, and I was pleasently surprised.

~~Amount of Dead Links~~

As with all Search Engines however, there were of course some sites that had shutdown or under construction etc. Altavista did seem to have less than a lot of other Search Engines though, so a big plus here.

~~Ability to Search by Images/Sound/Video~~

Using Altavista, you are able to do complete searches just on anyone of these three categories. For Sound, a list of relevent files will be displayed, and you will have the option of downloading directly from Altavista, or visiting the link.

~~Ability to Search by Phrase or Question~~

Unfortunately this is the one main aspect where Altavista just didn't measure up. I found this function to be very poor, and would recommend sites such as C4.com, or AskJeeves.com for anyone wanting this.

Overall I was quite impressed by Altavista. It was simple to navigate, easy to use, had very few dead links and offered relevent results. Defintately one to try.