World's Largest Multimedia Search Index Unveiled

Leading search engine Alta Vista has announced that it has significantly expanded its multimedia search index to more than 550 million items, making it the world's largest, with 125 million more files than its nearest competitor.

AltaVista's expanded multimedia index catalogues more than 540 million high-quality image files and approximately 11 million video and audio files, including formats such as MP3 and MPEG. Also included are hundreds of millions of files published in different countries from around the world.

So who is Alta Vista again?

Long before Google, AllTheWeb and other popular search engines came along, AltaVista was the leading provider of Internet search services to users of the Internet.

Search engines are powerful tools for finding words, names or phrases on the Web. Each engine searches its own database of Web sites; many index more than 2 billion Web pages, and are generally updated weekly. Many search engines index the full text of Web pages; others index selected portions only

Google, at present the biggest (2.5 billion pages) search engine, indexes web pages, PDF, word and other files. Today’s recent statistical information has revealed that 90% of all web searches are requested via the major search engines

The extra images are great, but have they made it any easier to find them on ‘net?

To further improve searching capabilities AltaVista has added a new refinement features. It now has a greater emphasis on providing searches by file quality, including customized searches for larger image files and superior downloadable audio and video content. The index now offers AltaVista important advantages in meeting users' growing demand for multimedia search capabilities.

The enhanced index also includes professional image content from providers such as Corbis, one of the world's leading providers of digital images worldwide. Before the most recent update, AltaVista's index included 400 million media files.

Are there copyright restrictions associated with the images?

You do need to be a little careful if you intend using any of the images found on the Internet. The images identified by the search service may be protected by copyrights. Although you can locate and access the images through a search service, the rights to use them for any purpose other than viewing them on the web cannot be guaranteed. If you want to use any of the items, be they images, video, audio etc, it is best to contact the site owner to obtain the appropriate permissions.

Some of the images can be ummm, explicit; can I prevent seeing inappropriate mature content?

The Image Search defaults to using a mature content filter on any search. The filter will remove many adult images but it probably can't guarantee that all content that some people would find “inappropriate” will be filtered out. To turn off this filter, click on the link that says, "mature content filter is on".

There is no way to ensure with 100% accuracy that all mature content will be removed from image search results using filters.

How do I find this site on the Web?

To access the multimedia index, simply click on the "Image," "MP3 / Audio," or "Video" tabs that located above the search box at altavista.com site, or log on directly at images.altavista.com, audio.altavista.com and video.altavista.com, respectively.

Arthur Hissey
Computer Research & Technology
www.crt.net.au