Altavista是全球较知名的网上搜索引擎公司之一，同时提供搜索引擎后台技术支持等相关产品。

“AltaVista”这名称代表「从高处望下」，它于1995年由迪吉多公司（Digital Equipment Corporation）创立，因此起初其网址用了altavista.digital.com 。网站使用了DEC Alpha服务器。

在该搜索器出现以前，已有一位名为Jack Marshall的人开设了名为AltaVista的公司，并使用了altavista.com此域名。结果，该搜索器被迫使用较长的网址。至1998年，迪吉多公司被康柏电脑收购，并出价335万美元购买altavista.com网址。最后，卖家愿意卖出网址，并改名为PhotoLoft。AltaVista也需要把PhotoLoft公司的链接放在首页一段时间。

AltaVista was an early web search engine established in 1995. It was once one of the most popular search engines, but it lost ground to Google and was purchased by Yahoo! in 2003, which retained the brand but based all AltaVista searches on its own search engine. On July 8, 2013, the service was shut down by Yahoo! and since then, the domain has redirected to Yahoo!'s own search site.