newbie: Inktomi, directories, engines

[KathyA]

Okay, this will make all of you feel very smart...

I am relatively new to SEO and am trying to find out more about it.

Could someone tell me exactly what Inktomi is, and how it fits into the search engine world?

I also saw this page http://169.207.238.189/ referenced in another post about "inktomi standings". Does anyone know what that page is?

And what is the difference between diretories and engines? I've seen that discussed as well.

Thanks so much!
Kathy

[markymark]

Okay, here goes.

Inktomi is a company that provides a search database to other search engines. These include MSN (web pages), HotBot, AOL, Overture (non-pay per click listings), iWon and more. Getting into the Inktomi database means that your web pages will be included in all the search engines listed above. Whether you have a good rank of course is a different matter.

That page you mentioned is a feature of Positiontech.com. Positiontech.com are a company that provide paid inclusion services on behalf of Inktomi. You pay $25 per page to Positiontech and this guarantees inclusion into the Inktomi database within 72 hours and thus into the search engines I mentioned above. It also means that Inktomi will re-spider your page every couple of days.

Within Positiontech, there is a feature to see results in a pure Inktomi search engine which is what that site is. Just Inktomi results (many of the search engines that use the Inktomi database also use results provided by other search engines or directories as well).

The difference between a search engine and a directory is that a directory - like Yahoo or Looksmart - is a human edited listing of web sites where as a search engine - like Lycos or Google - uses an automated program (called a spider) to retrieve information from submitted web sites.

Hope this helps.