AltaVista vs. Google

Do you still remember the days when AltaVista ruled the internet? The days where we just put the word “sex” as often as possible (hidden) on our website just to get a higher ranking? Internet has changed a lot since then and we now have Google instead of AltaVista, but have we as user gained a lot?

Google has given us their new unique results which should give better search results fitting to our needs, but do they really help? Nowadays Google has taken immense control over our online habits and knows exactly where we have been and what we were looking for. Now even if you have nothing to hide, is this what we want? An all knowing network which tells us what it thinks is the best for us.

There are search engines that promise more anonymity but can they stand up against the great Google anywhere in the future just as it happened with the, back then, great AltaVista? Nowadays even the big guys Yahoo and Bing can’t seem to fight against Google although working together. Do you think we are still on the right way improving usability of the internet or have we lost the right focus?