Either Google thinks Altavista is the best search engine or it has the best SEO | Hacker News Reader

Either Google thinks Altavista is the best search engine or it has the best SEO

google.com

14 pointsvaksel22 comments

According to the google keyword tool, approximately 368,000 people search for the exact phrase [search engine] each month worldwide, and 135,000 in the US. I wonder what those people are really expecting to find when they search Google for search engine. I would think the Wikipedia result would be the most relevant.

Well, it seems Altavista somehow has a PR of 9. The only other site with the PR of 9 on that page is Yahoo but Yahoo's page doesn't seem to mention "search engine" as explicitly as Altavista, so the ranking makes sense.

How in the world Altavista has a PR of 9 is a mystery though.

"...the ranking makes sense." PR and rank are often correlated, but PR is not a good predictor of actual rank.

"How in the world Altavista has a PR of 9 is a mystery though." A large volume of natural links is probably the explanation here. altavista.com probably ended up in some trusted repository as well, which may render it relatively immune to "penalties" or other dampening factors.

Funny, AltaVista doesn't seem to think too highly of itself: http://www.altavista.com/web/results?itag=ody&q=search+e...

dogpile is coming on #1 for me

Dogpile Web Search

AltaVista

Ask.com Search Engine - Better Web Search

you are probably logged in and it's giving you custom results.

Dogpile is #2 for me.

On bing #1 result is Dogpile

On Yahoo #1 result is Yahoo

On Dogpile, #1 result is Dogpile

On Ask, #1 result is Ask

On Altavista, #1 result is Yahoo

I'm not logged in and I'm also getting Dogpile as #1 result. I hate that when google alters my results according to my country/login.

Out of curiosity, why does this bother you?

What guarantees that the results are better for you?

I feel I can trust the "results for everybody" better as are likely more thoroughly verified.

It bothers me to get different search result every time I'm on another computer. It's like surfing another internet..

It is presumptuous, and sets a possibly dangerous precedent.

It's not a result of being logged in. I was logged in, and signed out, and dogpile was still above altavista when I refreshed the page. However, when I cleared my cookies, Altavista and dogpile switched places.

Most likely due to this : http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=977461

Who knows why Google calculated that my behavior indicates I'd be more interested in dogpile...

I think its more impressive that Google doesn't even rank itself in the top 10

Hm I think this is Google making sense: why display itself as a result? You're obviously not looking for Google if you're using Google to find a search engine.

Due to Google's preference to key word search at the moment?

Google doesn't like semantic now as I recall someone posted a link saying that maybe half a year ago.

If that's the case Bing probably has the worst. The excerpt reads "Visual Search · » · » · » · » · ◄ · ►. ©. The USS Missouri and Arizona Memorial in Pearl..."

For me, #1 A news related to GOOG #2 Dogpile #3 Altavista

But for the query 'search' Altavista is the #1 and Google is next to it.

DuckDuckGo was only 2 after Google. Way to go!

6,310,000 old backlinks, many of which come from highly trusted sources, might have some effect.

Well Altavista used to be the best search engine.

It is the oldest one.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com