But size alone would be useless without an effective search system, and Alta Vista seems to have made some much-needed and successful improvements in this area. The most relevant and current items now usually appear in the first few pages of results, and repetitions have been eliminated or minimized.
Alta Vista has also added a variety of helpful search aids. One service called RealNames displays a list of web pages with titles that are near matches to your search words. Others (which vary depending on your search word) are lists of suggested search words, a few recommended websites, and LookSmart directory categories.
Well-Chosen Special Features
Alta Vista incorporates LookSmart's excellent subject directory, which is noteworthy for its clear, detailed, and logically organized subject categories. If you're looking for the most important sites about a subject, it's well worth a try.
A fairly new addition is AV Photo and Media Finder from Corbis. Here you can search the web or Corbis' media collection for an image, video or audio clip related to any subject. Corbis claims that it has indexed over 17 million images and clips.
AV Photo and Media Finder is the fastest media search engine I've come across, and its images and clips are pertinent and attractive.
Industrial Communities, by Vertical.Net, is another excellent Alta Vista feature. It offers a quick and effective way to get comprehensive information about a variety of industries in the fields of communications, electronics, environmental activities, food and packaging, insurance, manufacturing processes and the sciences. Each of these fields is broken down into several industries. For example, Bakery, Beverage and Dairy are some industries included in the field of food and packaging.
Some examples of the kinds of material Industrial Communities provides about each industry are - news analysis, feature articles, case studies, regulatory and legislative issues, a chat room, a discussion forum, a buyers guide, product Q and A, newsletters, job listings, and career tips. And it's all in one place!
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