Using AltaVista for me meant digging through page after page of results. Comprehensiveness was the main concern. It was up to the user to evaluate the relevance of the results.

Early Google made similar claims about comprehensively searching millions of pages, but as we know today, they are intent on inferring meaning and purpose. They actively discourage and prevent users from combing through page after page of results. User evaluation (i.e., intelligence) is not expected. Google attempts to evaluate results for the user based on popularity, originally estimated primarily by counting backlinks. Popularity as a filter is useful sometimes but deeply flawed at others. It's arguable Google has dulled, atrophied or stunted development of web users' analytical skills. When it first appeared on the web, Google had no paid placements and no advertising. What was not to like? They later abandoned their original mission to avoid the influence of paid placement. They became beholden to advertising.

It was not difficult to see when and where the influence of advertising came into AltaVista. However when this started to happen at Google, Google tried to hide the ads by making them text-only. As if the influence was not there.

We need another AltaVista, where user evaluation of results is allowed and encouraged, with a mission statement like the original Page and Brin paper announcing Google: no influence by advertising. Ultimately PageRank was dependent on human discretion: the decision whether or not to link to another page. We soon learned that this discretion, this choice to link or not to link, easily becomes driven by money when people know it effects PageRank. Google quickly got gamed and it has been trying to pretend it can manage this ever since.

We need non-commercial search.