What-if certainty 3/5 debate potential 2/5

Cutts: AltaVista would have crushed Google if they grasped ranking signals

Matt Cutts · Matt Cutts on the US Digital Service and Working at Google for 17 Years · Y Combinator · Dec 4, 2019 · at 2:56

Former early Google engineer Matt Cutts discusses the competitive threats Google faced from incumbent search engine AltaVista around 2000.

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“I remember when Alta Vista, I was worried they were going to crush us. Cause like, you know, you have a certain number of ranking signals and if they had twigged and caught on fast enough, they even like copied our appearance.”

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