How long would an Inktomi penalty last?

[nudetravel]

Most regulars a probably familiar with my Inktomi woes as outlined here http://www.ihelpyouservices.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1371, here http://www.ihelpyouservices.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1031, here http://www.ihelpyouservices.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=934 and here http://www.ihelpyouservices.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=942 . Still no improvement. :1:

In fact, I haven't even been able to confirm that I *am* being penalized, though I am forced to assume that is the case.

My click through charts from PT show about an 80% drop in October of 2001 - so I am assuming that's when the penalty was imposed (or maybe September). Does anyone have any idea how long these penalties will last? I think the penalty must be for either over-submission or more likely having a "doorway" domain that had only one page and no unique content (I did it because the domain matched our vanity toll free number - I should have never submitted it to inktomi to begin with. The price of ignorance I guess).

(I'm tempted to take my two primary URL's out of PT and list one or two oy my secondary sites and try and get ranking that way - but I hate to do that because in all honesty it would be sort of spamming, since the only purpose of for it would be to get clicks from Ink engines to a page that would try and convince the users to visit my primary sites, which presumably what got me here to begin with.)

[ihelpyou]

If indeed you have a penalty, all you can do is fix whatever it is you are doing.

Ink is not going to tell you what it is. Anything you believe even might be giving you a penalty needs to be fixed. Just remember that Ink and no engine wants to have url's in the index with the same content. Nor do they want any doorways, gateways, biteways, highways, or anythingWays, in their indexes. :)

[nudetravel]

Doug:

I did fix it back in October - as soon as I realized what was going on. How long should it take before the penalty is lifted?

BTW - my situation proves that paid customers can still be penalized!!

[ihelpyou]

As with all search engines, that is a question that does not have an answer. You cannot know.

[Gordon]

I have read many similer posts to this about penalties imposed by search engines. I'm pretty new to search engine optimization, but it strikes me that a lot of dissapointment and frustration is being caused by, in most cases I suspect, accidental spamming.

Are there not moral and possibly legal issues involved here in the case of penalties imposed on paid submissions?

Why do Inktomi and similar paid submission SE's not have to account for their actions to their customers?

If I paid a news publication to publish my classified ad and it didn't appear because they may have penalised me for some reason I would expect a refund and a full explanation at the very least. If they refused to answer my complaint or refused to say if indeed they had penalised me or if it was a printing error, then I would question their morals and legal standing if they didn't offer a refund or advice on how to put things right.

Couldn't pages to be submitted be reviewed BEFORE we are charged a fee? and if they are not suitable for any reason, be rejected before any charges are made? This seems a much more sensible, fair and morally acceptable method and one adopted in all other media as far as I know.

Gordon

[ihelpyou]

hey Gordon, that is a good point but would be impossible to implement. That would show favoritism to the paid pages if done that way.

Ink clearly states on a page their stand on what could be constituted as spam. They cannot do any better than that. If they were to tell a paid site ahead of time that their page does not pass the muster, then paid pages would be given special warnings, etc over non paid pages. Would not be right. We all would like to know if what a page is doing is spam or not. Everyone's safest bet is to learn what is and what is not spam and don't do it.

We all had to learn somehow. Most of us learned the hard way by being banned or penalized along the way.

[Gordon]

Would favoritism for paid submissions necessarily be a bad thing? I think it would attract a lot more business for Inktomi. By monitoring content, Inktomi could raise the quality of the paid submissions and so provide a better product. the customer would be happy as he'd be given good advice and a helpful service and wouldn't be possibly throwing his money away.

Don't several other search engines show favoritism with paid rankings?

Gordon

[Advisor]

In these engines you're simply paying to be included not paying for rankings. So if nudetravel is indeed being penalized, his site is still included...which is all he's paid for. The engines aren't doing anything wrong. Plus, they can not accept certain pages if they don't conform to their rules. I think you can substitute different pages if this happens when you're a paying customer, or can fix your page.

Jill

[MakeMeTop]

I've triggered an Ink penalty in the past on paid submission. The penalty appeared to affect certain pages and not others. I tried:

fixing the pages - penalty was not lifted.
adding new pages - penalty was awarded to new pages.
redoing whole site - penalty was awarded to whole site.

I then removed the site from Inktomi and tried:

putting the whole new site on another domain and submitting that to paid inclusion - new site rides high and all positions back.

Inktomi has stated elsewhere that if you have a penalty and have fixed the problem to e-mail their spam-crusader address and they will re-look at the site. I couldn't afford the wait though. New site is inspection proof and adheres to their new rules :)

[Gordon]

I'm not suggesting we pay for rankings, I just think it might be helpful if they told us they intend to penalise our submission and give us a chance to put things right before they bank our money and say "tough luck" (if you're lucky enough to be able to communicate with them). I'm sure it would be beneficial to both parties for the reasons I've stated above.

[ihelpyou]

Good point Gordon, but the fact remains that they state the requirements of what is accepted and what is not accepted in their database before they take your money. When money exchanges hands is when they review things. They only guarantee inclusion by paying. This has nothing to do with what they may do with your page once they review and once you pay.

[Advisor]

You're right, Gordon, it would be nice if they would do that stuff. But the engines seem to hold all the cards and really don't care, unfortunately.

Jill