[timthorn]

They might have been superior but it took a while for users to switch. Obviously some went across very quickly but AltaVista et al were still viable for a while.

[nojvek]

Altavista was good. I loved Yahoo directory.

At that time, google was one big search bar and 10 links.

It was fast, had no ads. Until IPO, they didn’t want to do ads.

Now it’s just ads on the top links.

Google is absolutely vulnerable, if someone comes up with a better search engine.