In the initial time where alta vista were seriously co-existing as search engines (on that graph, in the time before they crossed paths in usage) Alta Vista was a little nicer because it really was a much more raw look at the web. If I did a search for 4 keywords in a row, the first ten hits were generally an exact match. (there weren't as many cloned sites etc... so this was a reasonable thing to do)
Really? I started using Google before it had its own domain, and was eagerly showing to people. AltaVista had started shitting up its interface with intrusive ads by then IIRC, but more importantly while the arcane combinations I needed to get decent results made me feel like a wizard, I could get as good if not better responses just typing a few terms into Google.
That's what I remember, but yknow, it's been over a decade so memories fade. I remember that it took me a little bit of time to transition from trying to guess combinations of words that would appear in my target documents to just utilizing keywords.
I miss that aspect of the web.