Altavista Co - Refocused On Being A Search Portal, 2000-2001

In the second half of 2000 AltaVista began to reposition itself as a search portal and focus on unveiling more powerful search technologies. The company introduced a new Advanced Search Center that would take up to 800 characters and allow Boolean searches. In September AltaVista cut an additional 225 employees, reducing its workforce by about 25 percent. In October CEO Rod Schrock stepped down, leaving the company to be run by President Greg Memo and Chief Financial Officer Ken Barber. In addition, Alta-Vista's free Internet service was terminated in the United States. In February 2001 AltaVista sold Raging Bull to competitor Terra Lycos.

For 2001 AltaVista appeared to be fully re-focused on its core strength of search engine technology. In addition to offering advanced search capabilities at its Web site, AltaVista was pursuing the enterprise search market by licensing its search software to businesses. In an effort to make its search results more relevant to individuals, AltaVista partnered with Moreover, a specialty search company, to make news available within 15 minutes for searching. As part of their partnership, the two companies planned to approach corporate portals with a proposal to sub-index their corporate information to enable employees to search internal documents.