Yahoo! to close down pioneer Web search site AltaVista

SUNNYVALE, Calif., July 1 (UPI) -- U.S. Internet company Yahoo! says it has decided to close the search engine AltaVista, launched in 1995 as one of the original search engines on the Web.

AltaVista, just one of several properties Yahoo! said it would shutter in the coming year, will officially cease to exist July 8 and will begin redirecting visitors to the main Yahoo! site, Search Engine Watch reported Monday.

AltaVista was established long before search giant Google arrived; it wasn't until 2001 that Google began serving more searches than AltaVista.

It was one of the first search engines to index significant amounts of Web content -- 20 million pages -- and proved hugely popular before Google took over the search universe.

AltaVista went through a series of ownership changes beginning in 1998, and Overture and MSN once competed to buy it.

AltaVista finally ended up being acquired by Yahoo! when it purchased Overture in 2003.