Inktomi Spam Guidelines

[ihelpyou]

I will normally check the engines 'spam guidelines' from time to time. I was amazed at Ink's new crackdown on spam.


Inktomi Content Guidelines
Inktomi strives to provide the best search experience on the Web by directing searchers to high-quality and relevant Web content in response to a search query.

Pages Inktomi Wants Included in Its Index


Original and unique content of genuine value
Pages designed primarily for humans, with search engine considerations secondary
Hyperlinks intended to help people find interesting, related content, when applicable
Metadata (including title and description) that accurately describes the contents of a Web page
Good Web design in general

Unfortunately, not all Web pages contain information that is valuable to a user. Some pages are created deliberately to trick the search engine into offering inappropriate, redundant or poor-quality search results; this is often called "spam." Inktomi does not want these pages in the index.

What Inktomi Considers Unwanted Some, but not all, examples of the more common types of pages that Inktomi does not want include:


Pages that harm accuracy, diversity or relevance of search results
Pages dedicated to directing the user to another page
Pages that have substantially the same content as other pages
Sites with numerous, unnecessary virtual hostnames
Pages in great quantity, automatically generated or of little value
Pages using methods to artificially inflate search engine ranking
The use of text that is hidden from the user
Pages that give the search engine a different page than the public sees (cloaking)
Excessively cross-linking sites to inflate a site's apparent popularity
Pages built primarily for the search engines
Misuse of competitor names
Multiple sites offering the same content
Pages that use excessive pop-ups, interfering with user navigation
Pages that are deceptive, fraudulent or provide a poor user experience
Kudus to Inktomi. They are actually stating more clearer about what they Don't want than Google does now!

http://www.inktomi.com/products/web_search/guidelines.html

Getting rid of all those spammy doorways, etc is a real good thing. :)

[Alan Perkins]

Yes very good news. :)

Note you can find references to Ink's and other engines' "spam" pages in the How to avoid spamdexing (http://www.ihelpyouservices.com/forums/t1810/s.html) thread of the Spam and Ethic Forum.

[Advisor]

That is awesome, Doug! Good find. There's the definitive proof of what Inktomi considers spam. Cloakers beware.

Jill

[Alan Perkins]

:nerd: ~ hey, I would like some credit for "finding" it!

A couple of examples:

http://www.ihelpyouservices.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=23994#post23994
http://www.ihelpyouservices.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=26661#post26661

[Advisor]

LOL...(pats Alan on the head)...attaboy, Alan!

:D

J

[Alan Perkins]

Thanks Mum! :D

I was surprised you missed it in that "Responsible Cloaking" thread. That's what I was basing my arguments on - the current crop of "Webmaster help" pages is very clear and totally at odds with what Robin was saying.

At the forthcoming SES conference in Boston I will have some suggestions for the SEs on how to make their help pages even better. Let's hope some SE reps will attend the "Search Engine Marketing Industry Issues" (http://seminars.internet.com/sew/spring02/agenda.html#questions) session so we can work together to make things even clearer.

[Advisor]

Yeah, it would be great if the engines come to hear what you have to say. I'll definitely be there!

Jill

[ihelpyou]

Yes, at that time I had not viewed the Ink spam page. Only Google's when Robin was showing her stuff, so to speak.

Very surprised by Inktomi. Now, does PT and all the partners share the same thoughts on spam?

[Advisor]

Doug, I don't think it really matters what PT or the other partners think. They're just the pipe to get the pages to Inktomi, I believe. I don't think it's their job to police the pages or anything like that.

J

[ihelpyou]

Oh really? Then why do they review the pages when you submit them? They should be the front line on Spam.

[Advisor]

Do they review them? If so, I could be wrong. I just thought they take your money and submit them, but I haven't really looked into it all that much.

J

[nudetravel]

I don't think PT reviews the pages at all. In fact, they provide NO SUPPORT on your placement either. When I asked them if they could verify whether or not I had an INK penalty, I got a "canned" response that said:

==============================
We are unable to determine any issues regarding rankings for your URL's. We can only verify that they are being indexed and available to the parnters. Partners of Inktomi query Inktomi directly, if a URL can be found at one partner's site then we know it is indexed by Inktomi and available to all partners. Each partner has it's own algorithm so search results will vary among them, each partner also has control over which URLs it wishes to display.

For tips and help on rankings we highly recommend two sites, http://www.searchenginewatch.com and http://www.searchengines.com.

Support
Position Technologies, Inc.
==============================

Pretty much reads to me that they WON'T look at your page(s).

[ihelpyou]

I just don't think that is right. To think Inktomi would not want some help in the spam area is beyond me. Afterall, the partners are getting paid to be a middleman so why not check a page for spam according to the Ink spam guidelines? The partners are the very first to view a submission so this would be very easy to implement and in my mind, a very good necessity.

To simply forward on to Ink any and all spam that comes through is silly.

[Advisor]

What you're saying, Doug, would be a great value added service for Inktomi. However, it would be a TON of work for the partners. They'd have to set up a whole new program and I'm sure they'd charge Inktomi a lot for it. I sure would. Think of the headaches involved. They're already getting yelled it when Inktomi partners don't use the latest databases. I can't even imagine the repercussions if they had to weed out the spam.

Jill

[nudetravel]

I wonder why Inktomi goes through the partners for the search/submit anyway? I for one don't see any added value - why would inktomi want to give up the margin?

[MakeMeTop]

Margin to middlemen is usually given so they take the hassle while you take the money :)

Can you imagine the grief Inktomi would be getting if having paid them $25.00 - Joe Affiliate's home page didn't rank #1 for 'viagra' or AOL/MSN didn't pick up their page for a few days?

Trust me - that margin is well worth it to Ink as someone else can take the grief and unhappy comments ;)

On another issue - Inktomi's new policy, coupled with the fact that MSN (and maybe other partners) are going to show the surfer an image of the page they are going to visit has convinced me that cloaking by IP for spiders is no longer an option we can consider in any circumstances. Where I may have previously had my arm twisted through web-design considerations, I now feel it is of more benefit for us to refuse to do this and insist on a site redesign.

This is a BIG policy change for us - but then I think that site owners now have to make a choice - glitzy non-search engine site - or practical SE friendly site.