During its time on the Web, the AltaVista search engine has undergone several revisions and continues to evolve. Though it faces competition from a number of worthy competitors, it's fair to say that AltaVista ranks as the most feature-rich general-purpose Web search tool. This book helps you get the most out of AltaVista's power, using tables and examples to show you how to get what you need.
The authors first explain how to do basic searches, then move on to more advanced searches with Boolean operators and AltaVista's special parameters. Chapters detail how to do such things as search Usenet newsgroups and how to translate hits into other languages. If, for instance, you want to limit a search to Australian pages, this guide details the procedure. A lengthy alphabetical chapter lists searches for particular targets and, in doing so, illustrates some unusual search strategies.
Those who publish their own Web sites will appreciate the chapter that reveals how AltaVista ranks the sites it indexes. Many of the engine's ranking algorithms are secret (and remain so), but many others are public and receive satisfactory coverage. An entertaining appendix lists the words most frequently used in Web pages (the is the big winner) and an Excite-like list of the most searched-for words (though apparently with the raunchiness edited out). --David Wall
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