AltaVista Default & Prisma

AltaVista now really defaults to a Boolean AND on their basic search. After many previous changes of the default operation, including automatic phrase recognition, AltaVista has joined all the other major search engines and switched to a default AND operation for multiple word queries, at least mostly. The automatic phrase recognition still seems to be in force and certain phrases will automatically be searched as a phrase. Check the fine print at the bottom to see which phrases, if any, were automatically searched.

They have also launched a new interactive search initiative called Prisma which provides a broad range of suggested terms for refining a search query. It includes broader, related, and narrower terms. Only available for English search terms at present, they expect to expand to additional languages soon.