Customer Reviews

The AltaVista Search Revolution: How to Find Anything on the Internet

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Let me say upfront that Alta Vista is my #1 search engine, and part of the reason I purchased this book was to become a better searcher. But the real reason was to optimize the chances of my web site getting Alta Vista hits. The book helped me on both counts--especially pointing out the need for Meta tags in the HTML header (but you won't find meta tags in the index). The development of Alta Vista by Digital makes for good reading, as well as the appendices on search word frequencies. The low point of the book is Ch. 6--106 pages of search examples that are not very interesting. I wish the book had been written with a bit more technical detail and much less filler. Given the book's low price, I would still rate it a good value

Of course, the AltaVista site itslf has a help page which tells how to use its many features to best advantage. But help pages are typically terse, and most people find them unfriendly. You really can't study a subject comfortably or at odd times from a computer screen.

Enter this book, "The AltaVista Search Revolution: How to Find Anything on the Internet." It thoroughly explains the ins and outs of using AltaVista, with practical advice and real-world examples.

Starting with the basics, it tells you how to get to AltaVista through your web browser. It shows the AltaVista home page, and explains its various parts. Then you're guided through the process of making a simple search, and refining your search with the various tools available in AltaVista. Good examples are shown for each step of the way.

The next chapter covers the so-called advanced search, which allows even further narrowing of searching parameters. Again, you're shown the page that launches the advanced search, its parts, and well-chosen examples of how to use it. Extensive Tips and Notes keep the text interesting and lively. It's clearly explained under what conditions you'd want to do a simple search, and when an advanced search.

A further chapter goes over the same ground, but for searching newsgroups instead of web pages. Both simple and advanced newsgroup searches are covered.

Finally, one chapter explains how AltaVista actually searches and lists found web pages and newsgroups. This information is useful for webmasters (people who create the web pages) who'd like their pages to be found or listed in specific ways.

That detailed information about AltaVista takes up about half the book. The remaining half is devoted to an entertaining "A to Z Reference," listing by letter some typical sample searches, refinements, and tips on how to search for a multitude of topics on the Worldwide Web. Starting with "acquaintances", and going through "baseball cards", "canine", "dance", etc. to "zoo", you're led on a wild and eclectic tour of the amazing diversity of material available on the web.

Conclusion
AltaVista is one of the most far-reaching information retrieval tools ever made available to the general public. The AltaVista Search Revolution explains in clear and simple language, and in an open, lively style, how to perform accurate, efficient, effective, and fruitful searches using AltaVista.

Recently a friend at work told me about these so-called "search engines" on "The Internet." At first I scoffed: "What do I need a search engine for? I never had to search for an engine and I'm most certainly not an engineer." But I decided to have a look-see anyway because, well, I've always been the adventurous type.

Incredibly, there were several hundred copies of The Altavista Search Revolution available for one cent on Amazon (it's a book seller, not a river. I know, I was confused at first, too). The book is only ten years old; could the Internet have changed that much since then? Yeah right..

Anyway, I carefully placed my penny into an envelope, drove to my post office and mailed it. After about seven and a half weeks, the book arrived. I read it cover-to-cover, studying the colorful pictures and complex diagrams, before making any attempt to operate this Altavista.

Now let me tell you something: This book is worth every bit of that penny.

Without giving too much away, Altavista is this nifty computer gizmo that allows you to type in what you are looking for, such as "giraffe food," or "janitorial supplies." Immediately, as if by miracle, a list pops up on your screen that shows you where to find giraffe food or janitorial supplies on the World Wide Web (That's what the "www" stands for by the way, and yes, I learned it in the book).

A word of caution: When using Altavista, be careful where you click. I now have a house and garage filled with giraffe food and janitorial supplies. Please contact me if you need either of these items. Thank you very much.

---- Ed Kaz

The book is now only of historical interest. After all, you are not going to actually get this book, to teach you how to use AltaVista, are you? Written in 96-7, it describes what was then the best search engine on the Web. It shows how to use it. AltaVista had some nifty features. Like the clustering of results, according to broad topic meaning. Plus there was babelfish, for machine translation of written text. This could be done in several major languages.

Of course, we know what happened soon thereafter. Google burst on the scene, with a functional mapping of the idea behind the Science Citation Index onto web pages. This blew away Altavista.

Another reason this book is of historical interest is that Altavista was basically DEC's last major effort, that was briefly successful. A swansong for DEC, in some ways. What the book does not say, because this came after publication, is that when DEC was bought by Compaq, there was talk of Altavista going public. This was at the height of the dot com era. But through various delays, and Google's rapid rise, that never came about.

This book is very cool for people that are both new to the web as well as for those that have been on for like four years now. There are definitly things in it that will teach everyone something cool and useful about the web. You will be a far better web searcher and sufer after reading this--I keeep it close to my PC!

I loved the first edition of this good book. It made me a better searcher with AltaVista, which is what it's designed to do.

The section on searches one can make with structural elements in the URL makes the book worthwhile, but all of that is handled in a single chapter.

Why anyone would need Appendices on the most common words searched on AV, the frequency of words used in AV searches, or a sample of 1,000 queries is beyond me. The same goes with the chapter on the history of AltaVista. The subtitle is "How to find anything on the Internet." Nobody is buying a history of AltaVista.

As good as the early pages are, the book runs out of gas about halfway through and loses itself in a lot of padding.

I'd think twice about going for the second edition because I'm suspicious it's just more padding and that the essential stuff hasn't changed much. If you don't have the first edition, however, you might find even the first half of the second edition worth the price.