AltaVista and the worse search crime

[Joe Barker]

	Linda's comment below reveals a phenomenon I have long observed
with A-V.  The results can vary from zero to thousands with exactly the
same search. 
	When I teach searching of A-V I tell students to try at least
three times every search in A-V and then use BACK to get to the highest
result.
	I have e-mailed A-V for an explanation and got no reply. 
	I have come up with the explanation that A-V must allow you a 
given time in their database and send you the results found -- whether 
partial or totally inaccurate.
	Their failure to document or admit this "feature" is the worst 
crime against search engines I've seen -- this long dialog on search 
engines has not mentioned anything quite so horrendous as to report no or 
partial results when the search is valid and documents exist.
	HAS ANYONE GOT A RATIONALE OR EXPLANATION ?
	Joe Barker
	The Teaching Library
	UC Berkeley

On Sun, 9 Nov 1997, Linda Absher wrote:

> 
> My two cents:
> 
> I recently did a search on AltaVista and came up with no *no* results; I
> was surprised since I've done the search before on AltaVista and came up
> with at least five items.  I hit the search button again and got the five;
> this made me curious so I hit the button again:  this time nine items were
> retrieved.
> 
> Scary....
> 
> LInda
> 
> --
> Linda Ueki Absher		absher at lclark.edu
> Reference Librarian		(503) 768-7287       FAX: (503) 768-7282
> Lewis & Clark College 		Portland, OR 97219
> --
> "You deserve a longer letter than this; but it is my unhappy fate seldom
> to treat people so well as they deserve."           --Jane Austen
> 
>