AltaVista and URL Inclusion

Last Friday, Andrew Goodman of Traffick published a very disturbing item on his Weblog at http://www.traffick.com/ blog/default.asp . (It's the Friday,September 27 item; unfortunately there is no permanent link.)

He was contacted by a person selling AltaVista's URL inclusion services. That person told him that if he subscribed to AltaVista's Trusted Feed program, he would enjoy higher rankings in AltaVista's results than he would otherwise.

This was contrary to everything AltaVista had ever said or published, and if true very upsetting -- and damaging. The only reason that these URL inclusion services haven't been rejected completely by search engine users is because the major search engines have claimed that the inclusion programs do not effect ranking, and therefore the search engines were not selling rankings. As long as this policy remains true there will be very clear line between search engines like AltaVista and FAST and pay-for-placement engines like Overture.

Last night I talked to AV spokeswoman Joanne Hartzell. She emphasized that participating in AltaVista's URL inclusion program has no impact on one's AltaVista ranking, and that the sales person was misinformed or misunderstanding. Further, she said that AltaVista was taking steps to make sure that such a misinformation/ misunderstanding did not happen again.

All well and good. I'm very glad to hear that this salesperson was incorrect and that AltaVista is willing to assure me that they were incorrect. However, I wish AltaVista would speak out this a little more publicly about this issue (with a press release or something like that.) How many potential trusted feed customers got the same kind of message from their sales rep? How many people are walking around with the impression that AV is becoming a pay-for-placement company?

Considering how many quadamopillion press releases I get every day, I feel weird be typing this, but AltaVista is too low profile. Or maybe they just talk about the wrong things. They didn't announce it when they switched from a default OR to default AND last February, which completely changes the way one has to use the site. To my knowledge they have never done a public announcement or discussion of how its search engine syntax is different (and in some ways more extensive) than Google. AltaVista seems perfectly capable of send out press releases, but they do not in my opinion emphasize what makes AV different, unique, and better.

Here's what it boils down to, in my opinion. AltaVista is still a wonderful engine for the power user. (Let's put the question of index size aside for the moment; I'm focusing here on the range of searching options available.) AltaVista has syntaxes available in no other major online search engine. They have a really good news search and an excellent translation tool. And yet they try to "blend in," creating Googlesque interfaces like Raging Search (now thankfully defunct) and not talking too much about the technology behind their engine. AltaVista, please: step up. Start talking about your syntax. Open a dialogue between the engine and the users. Brag on yourself a little bit.

Posted to Search Engines-AltaVista