Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Northern Light Group

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:44, 21 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Northern Light Group[edit]

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Only 55 employees. This may be the only proper source in the current article. A Google News Archive search turns up empty. CorporateM (Talk) 02:48, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The number of current employees, or even the continued existence of the company, is not an indication of notability. Northern Light had an important part in the history of search engines, which is worth documenting. See, for example an article reporting the closing of its Web search engine: "Northern Light, the company that pioneered a number of innovative features for web searchers". Remember 1999? The top Web search engines were AltaVista, Northern Light, Inktomi, and HotBot.

You say that a Google News Archive search turns up empty. That is false. I find a number of articles in Google Archive Search (though many of the links are now dead):

Northern Light rescued from bankruptcy | Boston Business...‎ |Bizjournals.com - May 23, 2003
… Connection: Northern Light to Discontinue Its Free...‎ | Information Today - Feb 1, 2002
Search rivals see AltaVista straying from its roots -...‎| ZDNet Asia - Nov 6, 1999 | Just days after the company announced a major overhaul to compete with full- service Web portals such as Yahoo, search engine Northern Light launched a ...

Then there's Google Books:

Special Edition Using the Internet and Web - Page 293 | books.google.com/books?isbn=0789726130 (2001) | ...if you haven't used Northern Light yet, you're missing out on one of the hest search sites on the entire Internet! In addition to a decent-sized index, Northern Light includes a good collection of ...
Academic Research on the Internet: Options for Scholars and Libraries - Volume 2 - Page 340 | books.google.com/books?isbn=0789011778 (2000) | ... America Online (AOL), Yahoo!, Electric Library and Northern Light are good examples of portals that most consumers use.

The article can certainly be improved, but that is no reason to delete it. --Macrakis (talk) 03:06, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Massachusetts-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 03:38, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 03:39, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 03:39, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed the majority of sources are from [highbeam.com], is that reputable? Or is this one of those PR companies? ~~ Sintaku ^Talk 10:43, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I added these sources yesterday using Highbeam to locate newspaper articles. On the use of Highbeam resource within Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:HighBeam. AllyD (talk) 11:44, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - The company's best period may behind it, but the coverage establishes notability. -- Whpq (talk) 16:02, 16 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.