WhereIsAtlas · Tech

AltaVista

The pioneering 1990s search engine that was once the web's front door — shut down by Yahoo in 2013

Transformed — AltaVista was one of the internet's first and most popular search engines, created by Digital Equipment Corporation in the mid-1990s. It later passed through Compaq and then Yahoo, and was finally switched off in 2013.

AltaVista was launched in 1995 by researchers at Digital Equipment Corporation, and it quickly became the default way to find things on the young web. Its technology could crawl and index a far larger portion of the internet than rival engines, and for a time the phrase "go AltaVista it" really meant "search for it."

At its peak AltaVista was one of the most-visited sites on the internet, and it was briefly sold as a portal in the late 1990s dot-com boom. But it was never able to hold off the rise of focused search rivals, and ownership shifted rapidly. Compaq — which had bought DEC — sold AltaVista to the search company that would one day own it: Yahoo.

Yahoo shut the service down in July 2013, nearly two decades after its launch. AltaVista is now remembered as the search engine that proved the modern, indexed web search was possible, even if it was ultimately outrun by the companies it inspired.

Quick facts

Founded
1995, by Digital Equipment Corporation
Peak
One of the most-visited sites on the early web
Acquired
By Yahoo in 1999
Shut down
July 2013
Known for
First large-scale crawler of the whole web
Legacy
Pioneer of modern web search

Lineage — where the name went

A search engine built inside a minicomputer company and then handed along a chain of owners — Digital, Compaq, CMGI, Overture and finally Yahoo, which switched it off in 2013.

  1. 1995 — Digital Equipment Corporation created AltaVista (the public launch, 15 December 1995)
  2. 1998 — Compaq acquired Digital Equipment Corporation (completed in January 1998 for $9.6 billion)
  3. 1999 — Compaq spun off AltaVista (split out in January 1999 and relaunched as a portal)
  4. 1999 — Compaq sold CMGI (83% for $2.1 billion in stock and $220 million in cash, June 1999)
  5. 1999 — CMGI created The planned 1999 IPO (filed in December 1999 and cancelled, so the spin-off never reached the market)
  6. 2003 — Overture Services acquired AltaVista ($140 million, announced February 2003)
  7. 2003 — Yahoo acquired Overture Services ($1.63 billion, completed July 2003 — the route by which Yahoo finally owned AltaVista)
  8. 2013 — Yahoo created The 2013 shutdown (domain redirected in June, service ended 8 July 2013)
  9. 2003 — The AltaVista name acquired by Yahoo (the mark passed to Yahoo with the company and was retired in 2013)

Entities in this tree: Digital Equipment Corporation (company, 1957); AltaVista (company, 1995); Compaq (company, 1982); CMGI (company); The planned 1999 IPO (event, 1999); Overture Services (company); Yahoo (company, 1994); The 2013 shutdown (event, 2013); The AltaVista name (brand)

Sources

  1. AltaVista - Wikipedia — Wikipedia (2026-09-05)
  2. Yahoo to shut down pioneering AltaVista search site — BBC News (2026-09-05)
  3. Overture Services to Buy AltaVista for $140 Million — The New York Times (2026-09-20)

Related: digital equipment corporation · netscape