Get Your Products in Inktomi! During the Meet the Crawlers session yesterday, Jon Glick, Senior Manager for Web Search at Yahoo!, said that pages in the Inktomi indexes get considered for the Yahoo! Shopping search. To me, this says: "Get your products into Inktomi now!"
Let's Get Personal. Many search engines are now offering more personalized search results based on the user's search history. Cookies allow the search engine to try to guess what users are looking for when they type certain search terms. For example, if I do a search on "toys," the search engine will attempt to guess whether I'm looking for children's toys or adult toys. You can see where this would come in handy ;)
A question that must be considered is:
How do you maintain high rankings for client sites when search results become personalized?
Craig Nevill-Manning, Senior Research Scientist at Google, says he's not currently aware of any personalized search projects at Google.
Meanwhile, Jon said that geo-location search results are the first example of personalized searches happening at Yahoo.
It's funny how neither of them addressed the question specifically ;)
Are Directories for You? During the Dealing with Directories conference, Jill Whalen, owner of
http://www.HighRankings.com, offered this advise: "Get in all the directories you can. There are lots and lots of directories out there. Get in all the ones that are most relevant to you."
One of the benefits of directory listings is that they don't have to be crawler-friendly. If your site uses frames, Flash, session IDs, etc., directories are the way to go. One great example is the
Jayde Business Directory, where you can submit your site for free.
Liz Streng, Yahoo's surfing manager, says, "Why bother with directories? Because they provide targetted traffic." While that's nothing new, another great thing about directories is that they attract searchers who are looking for "breath" - meaning people who prefer human-reviewed listings. I think that's an important distinction between directories and search engines. In my opinion, directories will remain around because there will always be some end user out there who prefers human reviews over algorithms.
Don't Do It, Man! Jill Whalen warns that you should resist the temptation to re-submit your site to DMOZ because it takes them a long time to check submissions, and as soon as you submit your site, you start the process all over again, losing your place in line, so to speak. Patience is a virtue, and nothing illustrates that better than DMOZ.
Any Questions? If you have a question about Yahoo! listings or changing your site's category in the Yahoo! Directory, send an email to
url-support@yahoo-inc.com
If you have a question about a DMOZ listing or procedure or if you're interested in becoming an editor for the ODP, visit the ODP Public Forum at
http://resource-zone.com
Are Directories for You?
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