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Former AltaVista Customers!
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business, Transfer ASA, Privacy Copyright, WORLDWIDE. Home> Support> Welcome Former AltaVista Customers!
We are pleased to announce that Fast Search & Transfer ASA
(FAST) has aquired AltaVistas enterprise search business from
Overture Services, Inc. Read the full press release here.
There will be uninterrupted support and maintenance of your current
enterprise search contract, and FAST has hired the AltaVista support
team to assist in the on-going support and maintenance of your
enterprise search solution.
Please submit any technical support questions about your current
AltaVista product via our online form.
For any non-technical questions, or to learn more about FAST,
please contact us at avs-info@fastsearch.comvia phone at +1 781
304-2555, or fill out the online AltaVista-specific contact FAST
form.
altavista search engine documentation 100 words description
Outline: This paper is intended for search administrators and
Web developers deploying AltaVista Search Engine 3.0 software
for maximum performance, reliability, and security.
This is a "how-to" guide summarizing specific administrative
tasks for configuring AltaVista Search Engine software components
across multiple hardware systems.
Section II details how to configure search index sizing requirements
on 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems.
The AltaVista installation program checks disk space and supplies
a warning if your system has less than half the recommended capacity
of 4 GB (which is enough to store approximately 1.5 million average-sized
HTML pages).
The building and querying tasks can be handled by separate machines,
where the build system acts as both a staging server and a backup
to the live query system.
AV%20Performance%20Guide.pdf
index, gathering, indexing, servers.
Outline: Section III describes the factors that impact search
performance, such as system configuration, search traffic, type
of searches performed, and index size.
To enable this, the gathering, converting, and indexing steps
must keep the search engine up to date as the information changes.
Querying performance is defined as the query response time for
a given query rate, index, and hardware configuration.
These parameters tune the format used to store the search index
on disk.
Reducing the number of tiers recovers disk space and speeds query
performance.
This parameter can be set to exclude common words from a search
index (such "the" and "a").
AV%20Tuning%20Guide.pdf
index, query, indexing, tuning.
Outline: This parameter indicates the maximum size of an index
file that the system will attempt to read entirely into memory.
The following table lists the parameters that affect the entire
set of collectors.
Each collector type also has a separate default initialization
file in the defaultSettings directory.
The update process should open the index in read/write (rw) mode,
while other processes should open the index in read (r) mode.
While the default is 500,000 you can choose to set this number
to a larger value for better index performance when you have a
large index and plenty of virtual memory.
AVES_VI_.611.pdf
Altavista, enterprise search, support, business.
Outline: With world-class functionality and development tools
to power search on the enterprise intranet, AV Enterprise Search
is optimized to search unstructured data, in environments with
high security needs, and multiple data sources.
Built on the same scalable architecture that powers millions of
queries per day on the AltaVista network, AV Enterprise Search
offers the functionality, reliability, scalability, and customizability
required to meet the most sophisticated demands of intranet search.
With far-ranging support for programming languages, operating
platforms, front-end servers and applications, file formats, as
well as international languages, AV Enterprise Search is highly
configurable to power the most demanding search environment.
AVSE%203.0%20SPD%202.4.doc
gathering, query, index, database.
Outline: With fast gathering performance and easy-to-use management
tools, search administrators easily keep up with rapidly expanding
services and content.
Linguistic Query Processing Tools increase the number of successful
searches through spell-check, thesaurus, stemming, and phrase
recognition.
Tutorial included for customizing search and results pages, including
number of results per page, format of search results, integrated
banner ads, formatting headers and footers, etc.
Support for integration with Apache version 1.3.4 (Linux, Solaris,
Tru64 Unix) and Microsoft IIS 4.0 (Windows NT).
The information in this document is subject to change without
notice and should not be construed as a commitment by AltaVista
Company.
AltaVista is a registered trademark of AltaVista Company.
AVSE%203.0%20SPD%202.4.pdf
gathering, query, index, database.
Outline: With fast gathering performance and easy-to-use management
tools, search administrators easily keep up with rapidly expanding
services and content.
Linguistic Query Processing Tools increase the number of successful
searches through spellcheck, thesaurus, stemming, and phrase recognition.
Tutorial included for customizing search and results pages, including
number of results per page, format of search results, integrated
banner ads, formatting headers and footers, etc. Customization
enabled by AltaVista Search HTML Extensions, a set of templates
which enable customization of search and results pages.
Support for integration with Apache version 1.3.4 (Linux, Solaris,
Tru64 Unix) and Microsoft IIS 4.0 (Windows NT).
AltaVista is a registered trademark of AltaVista Company.
AVSE_3.0_.611.pdf
Altavista, customers, support, query.
Outline: AltaVista Search Engine 3.0 delivers world-class search
relevancy, performance, and functionality to businesses of all
sizes.
With over 1,200 industry-leading customers worldwide, AltaVista
Search Engine 3.0 is making intelligent search a strategic competitive
advantage for global businesses.
Coupled with lightening-fast query response performance, AltaVista's
intuitive linguistic processing capabilities enable fast and easy
online shopping and information retrieval.
AltaVista Search Developer's Kit provides a complete set of APIs
and libraries to enable easy development of custom search applications
and rapid integration into various E-Business applications.
Support for C, Java, COM, and Perl languages and the major operating
platforms allows developers to work effectively and efficiently
in the environment of their choice.
AdministratorHandbook_V30_111600.pdf
index, collectors, server, AltaVista Search.
Outline: Microsoft, Windows, and Windows NT are registered trademarks
of Microsoft Corporation.
At least 4 GB of disk space after the installation for building
and storing a medium sized index of approximately 1.6 million
HTML web pages.
The Index Configuration Wizard helps you through the configuration
process.
You need to install and setup a JDBC driver specific to your database.
2. To prevent the service from starting automatically at system
startup: A. Select AltaVista Search and click Startup.
Documents and information do not need to be a recognizable language
to be indexed; therefore, your index may contain target pages
whose language origin is classified as unknown.
Outline: An evaluation version of AltaVista Search Engine 3.0
along with marketing papers can be downloaded from solutions.altavista.com.
AltaVista indexes database records and database fields from joined
tables as a single document, easily retrievable and displayable
as query results.
For example, before the FBI implemented AltaVista Search Engine
3.0, agents often waited days to retrieve the various types of
information required to solve a single crime.
The contents (words of a document) are hashed across the buckets
when the index is stored on disk.
Multiple indexes (single indexes federated into a single, composite
index) can be queried and their results merged (using the document
size normalized relevance ranking).
CReference_V30_111600.pdf
error code, index, string, pointer.
Outline: The information in this document is subject to change
without notice and should not be construed as a commitment by
AltaVista Company.
Sun, Java, and Solaris are registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems,
Inc. Corel and WordPerfect are registered trademarks, and Corel
is a trademark of Corel Corporation.
avs_setdocdata Set arbitrary data on a document being added to
the index.
avs_total_docs Retrieve the total number of documents in the index
avs_version Set the version string of the index software.
The avs_compact procedure causes one or more levels of compaction
on the index.
Pathname to a file to contain the converted HTML Converter error
code The avs_convert_file2html procedure converts a document to
HTML.
ISS204.pdf
query, audio, customers, xml.
Outline: The information in this document is subject to change
without notice and should not be construed as a commitment by
AltaVista Company.
RealNames, the RealNames Logo and the Internet Keywords by RealNames
logo are service marks of RealNames Corporation.
Sometimes these parameters have the same value in different functions
(the dp and who parameters for example), and sometimes the parameters
have different values in different functions (the stype and FFF
parameters for example).
It is therefore important to use the description of the parameter
that applies to the function being performed by the query.
Fewer results will be returned if fewer than nbq documents satisfy
the query.
LinguisticsGuide_V30_111600.pd
languages, stemming, thesaurus, spelling.
Outline: The Search Developer's Kit offers several new linguistics
and language-based features: Custom dictionaries are now available
for stemming and phrase recognition (in addition to Spelling and
Thesaurus).
Custom user dictionaries are now available for Stemming and Phrase
Recognition (previously custom user dictionaries were limited
to Spelling and Thesaurus).
Configuration file: To initialize the spelling interface, you
must have a configuration file containing the pathnames to the
spelling files for each language.
The file format is as follows: part1/part2,ph For example: rock/and/roll,ph
rock/n/roll,ph Would create the phrases: "rock n roll"
"rock and roll" Note: Use only lower case letters in
the user dictionaries.
QueryCustomization_V30_111300.pdf
AVSHE, displaying, avset, query.
Outline: The information in this document is subject to change
without notice and should not be construed as a commitment by
AltaVista Company.
Templates and Language: AVSHE templates are HTML files which contain
AltaVista specific commands.
If you remove the AltaVista banner from the query and/or results
pages, you must include the "Powered by AltaVista" logo
as required in your license agreement.
pref.html is the starting point for rendering the preferences
page.
Because you cannot leave values blank in an AVSHE table file,
the special string @EMPTY can be used to represent a blank value
(ie: do not modify that part of the query).
SDK-white-paper.pdf
index, query, Kit, custom.
Outline: It provides an overview of AltaVista Search Developer's
Kit.
Optimized, high-speed Web server: generates search and results
Web pages (third-party Web servers such as Apache and Microsoft
IIS are also supported), and provides an interface by which users
query the index.
Document Bundle API: for integration with third-party spiders
and crawlers to add documents into an AltaVista Search Engine
3.0 index.
AltaVista Search Developer's Kit provides a way to examine the
contents of an index once it has been created.
A category can be defined when a unique literal string or field
is added to the document when the index is updated using the API
functions: avs_addliteral or avs_addfield.
Outline: It provides an overview of AltaVista Search Developer's
Kit.
Document Bundle API: for integration with third-party spiders
and crawlers to add documents into an AltaVista Search Engine
3.0 index.
This API can also be used to index database records.
AltaVista Search Developer's Kit provides a way to examine the
contents of an index once it has been created.
A category can be defined when a unique literal string or field
is added to the document when the index is updated using the API
functions: avs_addliteral or avs_addfield.
For example: The category "music" could be represented
by the literal string "cat$music" or the field "category:music".
SearchDeveloperGuide_V30_111600.pdf
index, query, indexing, indexes.
Outline: Sun, Java, and Solaris are registered trademarks of
Sun Microsystems, Inc. Corel and WordPerfect are registered trademarks,
and Corel is a trademark of Corel Corporation.
This includes the core search engine, linguistics, document conversion,
the Document Bundle and Index Compatibility APIs.
(It does not include the new Linguistics Tools for the Asian languages,
or the Encoding and Language Recognition tool.)
Visual Basic also includes the index compatibility functions that
allow an index to be shared between the Search Developer's Kit
and the AltaVista Search Engine.
Your application should follow these basic steps to create an
index: 1.
For languages that cannot use the callback mechanism (for example:
Visual Basic and Java), avs_startdoc and avs_enddoc procedures
handle entering the document data with an explicit call to the
filter function that processes the data.
VB_V30_111500.pdf
string, error code, index, query.
Outline: Microsoft, Windows, and Windows NT are registered trademarks
of Microsoft Corporation.
This state of the index will be retained for the next time the
index is opened, if a call to makestable or compact is made.
The compactionneeded function returns non-zero value if the index
needs compaction.
The deletedoc function marks for deletion all documents with a
specified docid (if any exist).
The iopt_ntiers property determines the maximum number of sets
of buckets to which the index can grow during operations that
add, delete, or update the index.
When building a very large index, it is better to have a larger
value as it reduces the number of compactions needed during building.
WhitePaperSDK091200.pdf
index, query, Kit, custom.
Outline: It provides an overview of AltaVista Search Developer's
Kit.
Document Bundle API: for integration with third-party spiders
and crawlers to add documents into an AltaVista Search Engine
3.0 index.
This API can also be used to index database records.
AltaVista Search Developer's Kit provides a way to examine the
contents of an index once it has been created.
A category can be defined when a unique literal string or field
is added to the document when the index is updated using the API
functions: avs_addliteral or avs_addfield.
For example: The category "music" could be represented
by the literal string "cat$music" or the field "category:music".
ZD-Exec-Outline.pdf
queries, AltaVista, Labs, multi-word queries.
Outline: ZD LABS HAS MADE REASONABLE EFFORTS TO ENSURE THE ACCURACY
AND VALIDITY OF ITS TESTING, HOWEVER, ZD LABS SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS
ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, RELATING TO THE TEST RESULTS
AND ANALYSIS, THEIR ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS OR QUALITY, INCLUDING
ANY IMPLIED WARRANTY OF FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
AltaVista Company commissioned ZD Labs to perform a test of a
selected set of web search engines; Google, DirectHit, Fast, AltaVista,
Northern Light and Yahoo!
We defined a natural language query as a query expressed in common
whole sentence language with punctuation.
We posed five such queries, one for sports, business, travel,
finance and shopping.
We did the same for simple one-word queries, simple multi-word
queries complex multi-word queries and a home page target test.
ZD-Search-Engine-test.pdf
AltaVista, returning, Google, query.
Outline: AltaVista Company commissioned ZD Labs to perform a
test of a selected set of web search engines; Google, DirectHit,
Fast, AltaVista, Northern Light and Yahoo!
We defined a natural language query as a query expressed in common
whole sentence language with punctuation.
Figure 1 below gives a Outline of the scores for each query category
in the test with totals for each search engine tested.
We awarded Northern light 14.5 points for returning 9 of 10 live
pages, seven of which were judged relevant.
AltaVista was awarded 8.5 points for returning seven live pages.
We judged four of those pages to be relevant.
AltaVista also returned a non-live page as its number one position.
Outline: AltaVista Search Engine 3.0 drives customer orders
for e-commerce storefronts, enhances the power of information
portals, and unlocks corporate knowledge in global enterprises.
Your search site administrator can optimize your search site by
controlling categories, ranking, and results navigation.
Far-ranging support for programming languages, hardware platforms,
file formats, and international languages means businesses can
trust AltaVista to handle their search needs regardless of the
format or location of their information.
· AltaVista Search Engine automatically gathers the mapped
information from the ATG Dynamo server.
Includes Superior Web Crawling Algorithms to provide fresher,
more comprehensive search results for sprawling Web sites, intranets,
and portals.
Outline: A potential security vulnerability has been reported
in the older versions of the AltaVista Search Intranet product
where, under certain circumstances, a user may crash the search
service.
Users are encouraged to upgrade their installations to AltaVista
Search Engine 3.0 which is not affected by this vulnerability.
AltaVista has also released a patch to this issue which is now
available from the AltaVista Business Solutions website (http://solutions.altavista.com).
5. Copy the updated mhttpd executable from the patch kit to the
installation directory, replacing the current version.
7. Restart the AltaVista Search Intranet software.
As always, AltaVista will continue to review and enhance the security
features of its products and work with customers to maintain and
improve the security and integrity of its software.
perl_v30_111700.pdf
index, Guide, PerlSDK, Kit.
Outline: With increasing demands for Perl-based applications
in the market, the Search Developer's Kit provides a Perl module
named AltaVista::PerlSDK.
With this set of extensions, programmers can easily build a script
using PerlSDK (either standalone or web-based).
In this model the client sends the request to the web server.
The standalone version (avs_sample.pl) can be run from the command
line.
You can run the WEB sample program under either mod_cgi or mod_perl.
You need to have the index name, the license key (optional), and
the query string.
Define a value type to be used for ranking or filtering on multiple
values.
querystats_V30_111600.pdf
query, outputfn, query log, java.
Outline: This guide describes the query reporting program, QueryStats,
that works with query logs generated in conjunction with a database.
With the query analysis tools you can build basic standalone reports,
convert logs to a useful data format, build reports that dynamically
interrogate the index (for example, "queries with few results"),
and generate ad hoc reports.
Java V1.3, Working RDBS to run the program If you are using an
Oracle database and MySQL, classes.zip (the Oracle JDBC Driver)
must be in your class path.
Example java -cp <path to jdbc driver> QS <config file>
-c <user name> <password> groupbyquery y go2 20 20
none none This is an example of a group by query report that writes
its output to the file go2.
