Good article from RankWrite

[ihelpyou]

Jill at RankWrite rants about the AltaVista express submission program, and for VERY good reasons.

http://www.rankwrite.com/archives/issue053.htm#av

[Mel]

HI all:

A couple of updates regarding Heathers terrific article.

I believe that the spidering of AV has improved in the past month, at least according to my stats and the rumor mill.

I have also heard rumors that the AV paid inclusion would drop your URL from AVs index after six months if you did not renew.

Also if you compare the pricing and features, AVs new Pay for Play Plan makes the Ink paid submission look like a bargain and is likely to generate better traffic also.

[ihelpyou]

What is so very hard for me to believe about this whole Alta/Infospider/ProBoost stuff is that AltaVista did not have all the answers to questions I know that they had before they launched this program.

The question about if a page gets dropped after six months if not renewed is very fuzzy at this point.

It has not been completely and matter of factly answered by anyone yet.

There are many questions with this that have to be ironed out, maybe with time.

I, for one, will stick to getting in the free way, until you just cannot submit for free anymore. That would be hard to believe though as then the database would lose all the good information sites out there.

[JuniorHarris]

I concur with Mel regarding AltavVista spidering patterns. Scooter has/is currently performing deep level crawls very nicely. In addition Mercator has also made an appearance (concurrently with Scooter), and indexed more pages then it had in the past 8 months.

Irregardless, the Inktomi partners still drive more traffic then AV. I do use the PostionTech (http://www.positiontech.com) Inktomi Inclusion (http://www.positiontech.com/inktomi/) service, which I feel has always been a bargain.

[Advisor]

It was *my* article...not Heather's! ;)

But in answer to the question about whether or not a page will be dropped, Chris Kermoian, Director, Internet Search Services and Web Marketing Services for AltaVista told me that they have no plans for that at this time.

What happens at Inktomi after the year is up? I've often wondered that. I've never used their paid program because I haven't had to (yet!).

The bottom line as everyone here already knows, is that people don't seem to be searching with AV any more anyway. So whether or not you're in there, is kinda irrelevant.

I've also had a whole bunch of people (some of my own client's sites included) whose sites were totally deleted from AV a few months before this whole bribe fee thing came about. Now *that* really smells funny to me :confused:

[Mel]

Hi Jill;

Sorry I goofed - I guess I read the bylines while I was walking by.

[ihelpyou]

Yes, pages dropped suddenly does not look good. This whole thing of "pay for index" is not a good thing for the engines. They must be very careful as to not alienate MANY good sites out there that would or could not afford the high costs involved, especially if the indexes drop the page if not renewed....

BTW Jill, I fixed your signature Url. For some reason, the sig. requires the url thingys. ( [ ] )

[Advisor]

That's okay, Mel, I'm used to Heather always trying to steal my thunder ;)

And thanks Doug, for fixing my sig!

Are any of you going to the SF conference in August? If you're thinking about it, I've just found out from Danny that we'll have one 1-day free pass available to give out. Just email me and I'll put you on the list of possibles to "win" it.

Doug, you should definitely go, it's a great networking opportunity! And by networking I mean::cheers: (drinking!). hehehe And Heather and I always figure the more cute guys there, the better! (Well...Heather does...I'm married :together:, so I didn't just say that.)

[ihelpyou]

Very nice avatar...... :eek: Is this really you? .. naw, me knows what you look like. ;)

Oh, I am just your average (stud-muffins) Joe. 6'2"-195-blond-eyes of blue. :thebomb:

Can't make this one, but will surely try for the next one.

[Advisor]

Yes, I am a Lisa Simpson clone. I figured she was a good symbol for me. Smart and Geeky. :D Is there a way to upload your own avatars? I think my daughter has a whole slew of avatars she made for something. I'm sure she could make me one more befitting of my beauty. (Sorry, Lisa)

[ihelpyou]

Sure, just make it no bigger than 100x100. Send it to me and I will load it. For some reason, the software is not letting anyone load their own. Been there. Think it's because of us taking out the ?'s from the threads. Just email to me.

I know I have seen you post elsewhere, but have never seen Heather anywhere. Be sure to invite her here.....

[JuniorHarris]

This is just my opinion, but it almost felt as if AV dumped or lost large portions of the database. I have read so many posts, where large volumes of listings were reported to have been dropped. These were not spam pages, but pages which had been listed previously, some for quite some time.

The Inktomi question is a very good one, and I've conversed several times with a chap from the UK who is very experienced with the Inktomi inclusion program as well as obtaining free listings. His very words were, "it'll drop like a rock" once the subscription expires. But he also notes that he has both paid and free listings in Inktomi from the same site, and that Inktomi does a great job crawling the free pages...so in a sense, that would suggest the page would be picked back up.

Since I'm fairly new to the inclusion program, none of my subscriptions will expire for some time. Hopefully I'll hear something back. But right now I'm leaning towards, it'll drop like a rock, however if your lucky enough to get free deep level crawls, the page may be picked back up and included.

[Advisor]

I heard when Inktomi's paid service was new that when people would submit a paid page, suddenly their other existing pages would disappear. I don't know if this still happens or not. But it was enough to scare me away from wanting to even attempt to submit to them (paid). I wouldn't be surprised if we see similar things happen at AV. :down:

As to Heather posting here, well, she's not much of a poster person. She's careful how she spends her workday because it's easy to let stuff like this "waste" your whole day. For me, I waste my days like this all the time, so I don't care! It seems I rarely do any *real* work these days. Mostly I'm just emailing, posting, reading or writing articles. Then every now and then I get to tweak some Titles or Metas, but much less often than one would think! The rest of the day is spent trying to convince clients why they NEED visible text on their page. (Yes, people surfing the web DO read!)

I'll see what my daughter can come up with for a nice avatar for me. Do they have to be clean? ;)

[ihelpyou]

Yes, make sure ya give it a bath first.:scattered

OR, you may be able to twist my arm to give "her" a bath. :D

[ihelpyou]

Nice avatar!!

I am sure it fits you much better.... :)