Search on Alta Vista for sites with links to CNN

[Wilfred Drew]

I have been doing a little investigating using the Alta Vista search 
engine at
http://altavista.digital.com.

I did an advanced query search using the following string:

link:http://www.cnn.com AND NOT url:http://www.cnn.com

This search produces a listing of sites with links to http://www.cnn.com 
which is CNN Interactive homepage.  It excludes the actual CNN site from 
the search.  Care to guess how many are listed?

According to the Alta Vista search engine (using the count option) there 
are "50534 documents matching the query".  Now there is hard evidence 
that tends to make me even more skeptical of the original incident.  It 
tends to make me think it is more a matter of miscommunication than 
anything else.  The actual number of links returned to me was 20 pages of 
10 on each page.  I had Alta Vista use its ranking mechanism by listing 
those with "CNN" first.

I looked at several dozen of the links.  Most use the text "CNN 
Interactive" or "CNN" or "CNN National & International News" in their 
link.  



Please feel free to repeat my experiment at Alta Vista.  Be skeptical of 
my results.  That is the scientific method of inquiry.

Be skeptical.  Don't accept things at face value.  I do not own stock in 
Turner Broadcasting so I have nothing to gain.
--
Wilfred Drew (Call me "Bill") Serials/Reference/Systems Librarian
SUNY College of Ag. & Tech.;   P.O. Box 902;  Morrisville, NY 13408-0902
Internet: DREWWE at SNYMORVA.CS.SNYMOR.EDU
Phone: (315)684-6055 or 684-6060 Fax: (315)684-6115 
Homepage: http://www.snymor.edu/~drewwe/
Not Just Cows Homepage: http://www.snymor.edu/~drewwe/njc/
LibraryLinks: http://www.snymor.edu/pages/library/
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