April 22, 1999 | When AltaVista debuted in 1995, it was the search engine of geeks' dreams. It indexed more pages than the competition, and it spat out good clean results faster. In those days, AltaVista's parent corporation, Digital, didn't cast covetous eyes on a "portal"-style future for its offspring; it didn't even own the "altavista.com" domain name. Instead, AltaVista was a technology demo -- a way for Digital to strut its super-fast processors' stuff.

So at first the headlines last week about AltaVista -- that it was going to sell search engine results to advertisers -- sounded dire. Shouldn't searches be neutral? Was AltaVista going on the take? Horrors!

As it turns out, the initial reports -- which made it sound like AltaVista wasn't going to come clean about the plan -- were wrong. If you look at the company's discussion of what it calls "relevant paid links," you'll see that the paid results will be set off by boxes and labeled "paid." The example, a search for "weddings," brings up a plug for the Wedding Channel at the head of the results list -- before you get to the 900,190 unpaid results.

Over on Yahoo, if you search for "weddings," you get a plug for the Wedding Channel, too -- only it's in the form of a banner ad. Search sites have been "selling keywords" in this fashion for ages now. On Lycos, a search on "weddings" gets you that Wedding Channel banner, too -- along with a "First and Fast" listing with links (to sites like Honeymoons.com and Marthastewart.com) that feel like paid links but aren't labeled as such.

What's new about AltaVista's move is that the ads are beginning to invade -- or at least bump up against -- the search results list. Even this isn't entirely novel; over at Goto.com, selling search results is the whole idea -- and the site will tell you exactly how much each advertiser paid for the placement. (I don't find Goto very useful as a search tool, but it does turn the machinery of Internet marketing into a fascinating spectator sport: Every time you click here, for instance, the Wedding Channel coughs up 35 cents to Goto.com.)

That AltaVista should be trying to squeeze more bucks from its site right now will come as no surprise to anyone who's been paying attention to the tech industry's corporate battlefield. AltaVista's parent, Digital, is now owned by Compaq -- and last week Compaq reported a disappointing quarter and fired its CEO, amid complaints that the company lacked a good "Internet strategy." AltaVista is Compaq's highest-profile Net holding. The pressure is on.

What's interesting about "relevant paid links" isn't their greed; it's their admission that people still aren't getting what they want from search engines. Aren't all the results of a search supposed to be "relevant"?

Next page | Better ways to find better links -- without money changing hands