Position Tech Reveals Pure Inktomi Results

[ihelpyou]

Nice little touch by PT. A pure Inktomi Search engine.

http://169.207.238.189/search/search.pl

Notice that any web site that paid to get into Looksmart is shown with the LS Title and description. Are all of your listed sites showing this in Inktomi? I am just talking about your LS listing, not the paid Inktomi pages.

If this stays the norm, it truly makes a good LS listing with a good description extremely important, and it also dilutes the importance of the "pay for indexing" for Inktomi a little.

What am I missing?

[ihelpyou]

This brings up another question. If your front page is in Looksmart and then also in Inktomi, what good can it possibly do to pay for indexing with Ink when Ink is simply using your LS title and description?

You cannot tweak those at all. I guess you can tweak your content and have it reindexed every 48hrs though. The problem is, many sites would rather have their page title and meta description in Ink if they are in Looksmart also.

This whole thing is very confusing. Wish Jim Stob of PT would chime in here.

[markymark]

My understanding of this is that the Looksmart/Inktomi partnership relies on a URL match to bring up the LS title and description. So if you have www.mydomain.com in Ink and www.mydomain.com in LS, then your Looksmart title/description will appear in the Ink. powered Engines. However, for pages such as www.mydomain.com/anotherpage.html unless that specific page is also in LS, your Inktomi listing will appear.

The advantage of the LS override of Ink listings where there is a URL match is that you get a kinda double-whammy ranking boost by being in both.

My own research indicates though that if you submitted www.mydomain.com/index.html to Ink and www.mydomain.com to LS, this is not seen as a match and you do not end up with the Looksmart listing overriding your own carefully contrived title/description.

I know Barry from makemetop is a bit of whiz at this area, so I will email him to ask him if he wants to comment.

[ihelpyou]

That is great! Barry is more than welcome. Read many of his good posts!

Are you sure about the added boost for LS listings if the same URL? I knew that only if it is a match, but what about this?

NO Ink pages are paid for. LS listing's front page is listed. The front page of the same site is in Inktomi and ranked highly! NO Ink paid submission.

Seems to me that any pages in Looksmart will show up in Ink no matter if paid or not.

[MakeMeTop]

Thanks for the invite, Mark - and for the advance welcome Doug. I've missed your posts on SEF!

The influence of L$ on Inktomi is profound and (provided you are willing to wait) does remove the need to pay Inktomi for the page which is listed in the directory. As markymark pointed out, that page will show up in Ink with the L$ title and description. However free entry into Ink means you have to wait for the standard Ink refresh (which seems to be about every 6 weeks) before any changes you have made to the page showing up on Ink - whereas you can see the results of any tweaking within a couple of days if you have paid. The use of L$ does not negate the optimisation you have done to the page you have in Ink - indeed - as markymark said - you get the equivalent of a double helping of a title and description tag which comes not only from the LookSmart title and description - but also from a 'hidden' area where the LS editor puts in words which allow a site to be found in the LS directory itself. If these key phrases then coincide with the phrases you have optimised for - then you get a mammoth site boost.

As an example look for 'search engine optimisation' on LS, you will see I have two listings on the first page. The first is to be expected - it has the phrase in the title - the second does not have this phrase anywhere - so has been picked up via the 'hidden' keyword area. It is this effect which has put me up pretty consistently into the top 10 for the same phrase on Inktomi. I also appear (though way down) for the US spelling of this phrase (with a 'z') and last week tried an experiment to see what would happen if I put this spelling onto my page in a couple of key areas. Hey presto, I appeared on the PT raw Ink listings in the top 20 for this very competitive phrase.

The 'hidden' phrases only come up in LS, not on MSN or other partners (as far as I am aware) and only on LS US - not on the UK version. But identifying them can allow you to do some pretty dramatic things on Ink, which has worked very well for me and my clients in the past.

You can also get a double bite of the cherry by putting your default home page into LS and then pay Ink to include /index.html (as markymark said) - you still get the LS bonus - but get to keep your Ink title and description in the display. I've only been playing with this for a couple of weeks and we'll see how it progresses.

Although the price in LS is somewhat painful, the ability to get your description changed to include your most important phrases could be beneficial, not only for LS listings but for the impact in can have in boosting you on Ink for other related terms. I've just had a description change approved, and will be interested to see what the results will be like in a week or two. I'll keep you posted :)

[ihelpyou]

Welcome to the forums MakeMeTop! :hi:

Very good info! I can go even further and have always known about the "hidden words" that LS assigns to a listing, but that those words are also passed on to MSN.

Thanks for the further info about the Inktomi relationship. THis clears up lots of things and explains lots of things.

[JuniorHarris]

Welcome MakeMeTop!~ :hi:

Funny reading the above thread I was thinking, this is a great question for MakeMeTop. I've always respected your sound solid advice regarding SEO, but in particular your Inktomi experience and advice. Your added experience, insight and advice are a great addition here!~

[highman]

welcome makemetop :hi:

my memory of your shirt is very vivid.... lol