Ask's ranking?

[Hardeep]

Hi Guys,

Can anyone help me out with ask ranking criteria? I mean: what is the best way to optimize a page for Ask Jeeves?

[qwerty]

Ask gets its search results from Teoma, which talks a lot on this page (http://sp.teoma.com/docs/teoma/about/searchwithauthority.html) about Subject-Specific Popularity.Subject-Specific Popularity ranks a site based on the number of same-subject pages that reference it, not just general popularity. Therefore, a big part of optimizing for Teoma/Ask involves getting backlinks from a lot of sites with a theme similar to yours.

[Hardeep]

So, will the below statement be true?

If a site is fairly new, and does not have extensive link-backs, it is not worth paying $30 to get listed on Teoma, because the site will not be listed high based on the page content.

Thanks for your help.

[ihelpyou]

That is true, imo.

[qwerty]

I'd add to that. I think it's almost never worth your while to join a pay for inclusion program. All the major search engines are spidering all the time now, so as long as you're linked to by a page that's in the SE's index, they'll find you.

[sytemaker]

Originally posted by qwerty
I'd add to that. I think it's almost never worth your while to join a pay for inclusion program. All the major search engines are spidering all the time now, so as long as you're linked to by a page that's in the SE's index, they'll find you.

I second that entirely.

[Hardeep]

Thanks Guys!

[ihelpyou]

Well, when the benefits of paying the bucks for 'one' page start outweighing benefits of saving those bucks and Not paying, then I will start paying.

I see the benefit of paying to be that you are indexed more quickly in teoma, fast, altavista, and inktomi. Here in the US, and when looking at the visitors coming from those engines, and even if you are in the top ten on phrases, the benefit of not paying and just waiting for one month or so more to be indexed, is not enough to start paying for every url.

If/when the time comes that a static page that changes little needs to be paid for, then they will start getting my bucks. Until then, I'm keeping the money in my pocket. I can see an advantage if you are constantly changing content, or maybe even trying to get a better position, but those engines are just not worth it right now to get that better position 'more quicker', imo.

[markymark]

I disagree totally. Inktomi via MSN and various other smaller partners delivers plenty of traffic and you have a simple choice. Do you want that traffic now - in which case PFI is the way to go or do you want it several weeks down the line. My conclusion is always 'let's get the traffic now'. After all, at only $25 per page, each page will have paid for itself and more in the time it would have taken to get into the index for free.

Plus you've got the advantage of regular crawls - so if your site is down for a few hours, there's no risk you won't appear in the next full update. And you can tweak pages to your heart's content.

I'd also recommend PFI for Ask/Teoma - as my experience has not been that you won't rank well until you get the links. Caveat: Ask.co.uk delivers a fair amount of traffic for UK sites - the .com version doesn't give you that much at all.

[ihelpyou]

I thought that is basically what I said?

Although, like I said, for me and in my opinion, getting all your pages in for free outweighs paying for "each" page. Patience is a virture. And also like I said, if you have changing content, etc, you may be better off paying. I don't know why you disagreed with my post? :)