AltaVista Company, a provider of search services and a majority-owned operating company of CMGI, Inc. has unveiled new features and functionality to improve its Internet search functionality and expand the company's core search service to more users. The company has added a variety of new tools, which include News 2.0, the next generation of the company's news-specific search service, as well as French, German, Italian, and Spanish versions of AltaVista Prisma, the company's assisted search tool that helps users refine their searches. AltaVista is combining these tools with other improvements including a new index that delivers unique, highly relevant results; daily refreshes of over 50% of search results shown; and PDF file search capabilities to deliver on the company's "Power of Precision" strategy.

The new features and functionality include: 50% of displayed search results refreshed daily; News 2.0, the next generation of AltaVista's popular news search service, including archived Forbes articles; the ability to search documents stored in PDF file format on Web sites; AltaVista Shortcut Answers for fast zip code, area code and currency look ups; the "More Precision" tool to give users more control over their searches; elimination of pop-up and pop-under ads on AltaVista's sites; Tracer ads; and AltaVista Prisma assisted search tool in four additional languages.

(http://www.altavista.com)