Inktomi PFI pages suddenly buried

[Robbo]

For nearly two years my site has been getting good traffic from Inktomi/MSN.

Last week, my free inclusion pages all disappeared from MSN.

Then, a few days ago, all my PFI pages were demoted in the index too, so that the site now gets 10 visitors a day from MSN, down from over 2000 a day (500 page site).

Obviously, the site has been reviewed and a penalty imposed by Inktomi.

I have been trying to find out from my PFI service why a penalty would suddenly have been applied to a site which was acceptable for years, and why PFI pages which have changed little would suddenly be dropped as well. The PFI service has said it is not their problem. (In other words, we've got your money, tough luck.)

I suspect that this is related to Yahoo's requirements for their imminent use of the Inktomi index, and that affiliate sites/online malls are being purged. I notice on some other boards similar stories are popping up.

Does anyone know anything about new Inktomi editorial rules, or have a contact at Inktomi I can pursue this with?

Thanks for any assistance or feedback.

[ihelpyou]

Welcome to the forums Robbo! :hi:

hmm, It looks like you received a penalty from Inktomi. PT has nothing to do with that as they told you. They only get paid to "index" your url and that is it. Period. You knew that when you paid as paying has zero to do with ranking.

It's obvious Inktomi changed their algo or spam filters and you got caught up in it somehow. This happens with many search engines. It's basically up to you to clean up the pages and then email Ink to say you did so.

OR, has your server been up and running consistantly?

[Robbo]

>It's obvious Inktomi changed their algo or spam filters and you got caught up in it somehow. This happens with many search engines. It's basically up to you to clean up the pages and then email Ink to say you did so.

Well, this is the heart of my problem. It is Ink who have changed their algorithm; I haven't changed my pages. I would love to clean up my pages, but I have no idea what to clean up, since I don't know what they now don't like.

I have gone though all the guidelines and can't see any problems with my pages.

I'll email Ink to try to get some feedback.

[Bernard]

Hi Robbo, welcome to the forums! :hi:

Please let us know what Ink has to say. I'm sure it may be of benefit to everyone here.

Also, you can post your URL in the site critique forum if you would like for the members here to look it over for potential problems.

[Net_Excitement]

hm scary

did you pay for 500 pages?

[mawells]

It may not be Inktomi's fault that your site has dropped. It may be MSN. Has everyone noticed the new "Featured sites" area at MSN? I have no idea how you get into this "Featured Sites" area, but it appears that their sales force may be contacting large firms to contract for PPC or top placement. (LookSmart and Overture listings now appear under these "featured sites".)

MSN is currently working on their own search engine, so they may be relegating Inktomi results further down on their results and it may well be in answer to Yahoo's acquisition of Inktomi.

How are your results at HotBot or some other Inktomi partner? Each partner uses their own set of algorithms, not necessarily Inktomi's.