AltaVista News

AltaVista is doing some cool stuff on their home page -- but in the UK, not here! Check out http://www.altavista.co.uk/ . Enter the query cats. You'll see that the search results have thumbnail pictures to their right. AltaVista is considering adding the thumbnail feature to the main AltaVista page, but they're still thinking about it. Kristi Kaspar of AltaVista told me, "We have to be 100% confident that it wouldn't effect the speed or weight of the page--both are important to our user base."

Finally, if you're still on AltaVista.co.uk, look at the top of the page. Click on the MySearch button at the top of the screen. This feature allows you to track your most recent 25 searches on AltaVista, and store up to 25 of your favorite searches. You can also save individual search results (that is to say, pages listed within search results) to a query search folder. You can even e-mail the search results from the MySearch screen.

Now this is seriously cool. This is an excellent management tool for the serious researcher. Does AltaVista has imminent plans to offer this on AltaVista.com ? No, darn it. Kristi Kaspar again: "Our number one priority right now is enhancing the relevancy and focusing on the vertical delivery." But, in regards to MySearch: "..as we watch its popularity grow on our International sites, we may consider the option to add the feature."

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