[hakfoo]

I recall there was a low-bandwidth, "text only" version you could use for some years afterwards which was just the search box. Probably suitable for Lynx users. Then they added one banner.

I don't think the UI switchover was uniquely AltaVista-- remember this was the time when everyone wanted to be a portal and had to have a section with sports scores, repackaged news, and stock tracking.

Yahoo was the last man standing on that path, but I seem to recall a lot of hay being made about the Excite/@Home stuff where the ISPs were supposed to push their portal on unsuspecting customers.