# altavista **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 15, 2003, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/altavista/219087 "2003-12-15T07:53:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2003, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/altavista/219087/21 "2003-12-18T19:17:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by AHunter3 \* > \*\*So the answer to the question is yes, it does matter even if I “get the page I want”, insofar as it doesn’t do me any good if it’s buried in an immense pile of pages I do _not_ want like the proverbial needle in the haystack. \*\* Thank you. Now, assuming that book is indeed Last Bus to Woodstock, it’s the first result from the search that **Mr2001** suggested. Seems Google isn’t as ungainly as you think. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2003, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/altavista/219087/22 "2003-12-18T19:42:14Z")
It’s not _Last Bus to Woodstock_. It’s _Last Seen Hitchhiking_. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2003, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/altavista/219087/23 "2003-12-18T19:51:41Z")
> [@](#): > > AHunter3, Google assumes AND unless you specifically tell it otherwise with an OR or whatever. Yeah, but how do you _nest_ your terms? What differentiates this: “last” and (“title” or “book” or “paperback”) from this: (“last” and “title”) or (“book” or “paperback”) – ?? I understand I could enter: last title OR book OR paperback – but how does Google know that the pages returned must each contain the word “last”, in addition to which it must contain either the word “title”, **or** “book” **or** “paperback”? Or, in the second example, that each page returned must contain **either** the word “last” **or** the word “title”, in addition to which it must contain **either** the word “book” or the word “paperback”? I’m not saying it can’t, I’m just saying I don’t understand the protocol for nesting the terms hierarchically. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2003, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/altavista/219087/24 "2003-12-18T19:58:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by AHunter3 \* > \*\*It’s not _Last Bus to Woodstock_. It’s _Last Seen Hitchhiking_. \*\* Ah. Then page 2 of that search. ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2003, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/altavista/219087/25 "2003-12-19T04:48:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by AHunter3 \* > **Yeah, but how do you _nest_ your terms?** You don’t. Google doesn’t let you group terms, so this Google search: foo bar OR baz bleck … is always equivalent to this AltaVista search: foo AND (bar OR baz) AND bleck AFAIK there’s no way to do this AltaVista search on Google: (foo AND bar) OR (baz AND bleck) ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2003, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/altavista/219087/26 "2003-12-19T16:32:31Z")
Well, it looks like Google can do somewhat more complex searches than I was aware of, although still more limited than Alta Vista’s boolean search field. And the syntax of boolean is just easier for me to bang out, it’s just like fourth grade math. It’s closer to how I think. (“easier to use” and “more powerful search specifications”) and not (“larger total index”) is IMHO \> “more total hits” -“specificity” OR “good syntax” [or would that be “more total hits” -“specificity” OR -“good syntax”?] ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2003, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/altavista/219087/27 "2003-12-19T17:16:36Z")
For years, I did…because I like doing boolean searches, and google just couldn’t do it. (As has been mentioned above.) But they changed a few years ago, to make themselves more like google (or something) and harder to do booleans on. Maybe they’ve changed back, but there was a while when it wasn’t handling nested ands, ors, and nots. All of a sudden, I was getting crap. So I stopped going there. After this thread, maybe I’ll start again - it was always much nicer to weed out the irrelevant sites… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/altavista/219087.md?page=1)