Digital Equipment Corp’s AltaVista search engine has broken its advertising virginity and is now carrying adverts that are tailored to whatever you’re searching for. From now on, searching on a topic will mean the result of your search will be accompanied by advertising roughly tailored to your interests – like most other search engines, a sort of mild version of dynamic advertising allocation we reported on recently (CI No 3,065). AltaVista claims more than 24 million hits per day, but has until now resisted the temptation to carry advertisements, which it previously believed would slow the engine down too much: it treats the site as something of a showcase for its own products, so it’s important that it performs well. Doubtless the company also found the opportunity for some easy money, something it hasn’t had much of over the past few years, too tempting. All the other search engines already carry advertising. Digital hooked up with Madison Avenue agency DoubleClick Inc, the result of a merger between a software development company and the internet ad sales division of agency Poppe Tyson, for the move. The advertising will be hosted on DoubleClick’s site and will be priced at between $50 and $60 per thousand impressions, or about five to six cents per impression. Digital says it will release an AltaVista search workgroup product early next year. The AltaVista site has 10 TurboLaser systems behind it.
