When Yahoo recently announced its purchase of Inktomi, the possibility that they might be dropping Google results all together came as no surprise. Google is currently Yahoo's number one competitor.

One question that immediately comes to mind is: should website owners continue to optimize for Google's algorithm or should they now implement changes to optimize for Inktomi's lesser-known algorithm?

Jill Whalen, owner of http://www.highrankings.com offers WebProWorld her views on optimizing for Inktomi.

"My strategies are the same for all engines," Jill told me in an exclusive interview, "I don't do anything specific for any engine. The main way I optimize is through good keyword research, so I optimize for words people actually search for and incorporate them into the physical content of the page."

As long as your page has good content and is optimized for relevant keywords, you should do well on the search engines.

No two algorithms are the same but Jill doesn't stress over the differences and similarities between Inktomi's algorithm and Google's algorithm. She says all search engines "want to see relevant content" and "little differences don't matter all that much."

When will Yahoo move to Inktomi results? Last year, after Overture was purchased by Yahoo, Jill says a Yahoo spokesperson told her that until they are sure they'll have the same quality of relevance that they currently have with Google, they won't make any changes. "Everyone speculates that will be soon," Jill says, "but I haven't seen any results yet."

Now that you've heard Jill's predictions, what do you think?

Generally Yahoo queries account for about 24% of normal daily click-throughs (compare to Google's 40%) - when Yahoo makes the switch - the likelihood that any significant change to that number will occur (up or down) is very small.

Notwithstanding... will Yahoo regain or surpass their previous levels of market share?

Anything is possible - but an instantaneous jump from Google to Yahoo "on switch" will never occur...

This tends to be a concern only to SEOs/web site owners that know/do SEO as for the general markets (searchers) really don't care about technology, rankings, algorithms... if they continue to find what they want and (probably more important) like the interface of the search engine they are at/features/look/style/ etc. they will not move.

My wife - refuses to use Google - because she started with MSN - and Google isn't organized as MSN - thus she is happy with "what she knows and understands"... aren't we all? That's her comfort zone - and no algorithm or company brand change (search change) will change her - until MSN makes a mistake.

We are all creatures of habit.

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What's the scoop on Inktomi? I just got off the phone with Daniel Brandt, anti-Google agitator and founder of Google-Watch.org. His media focus is Google, but he follows search engines closely and had a few thoughts to share about Inktomi.

Flaketomi? Inktomi, he says, has long had a reputation for flakiness - their crawler's often on autopilot, crawling sites without listing them in the index. There's even some guff in WebMasterWorld about people who have paid for listings but still don't show up in the results.

Inktomi Dropping Pages. In addition, he's had 40 - 50,000 listings recently dropped from Inktomi. His main site, namebase.org, is a resource on political figures. While about 300 or so listings remain, this drop could point to a reduction in resources allocated to the index, or a change in how they handle single sites with thousands of pages.

He had not heard of Inktomi doing this with any other sites.

Yahoo! Already Delivering Inktomi Results. He noted that several people, again in WebMasterWorld, have found Yahoo! sometimes delivering Inktomi results. They're selectively testing Inktomi there at Yahoo!, so all you reverse engineers out there should watch closely and post when you figure out what's going on... :)

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Garrett French
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I think text is great and writing it so it sounds good is very important.

But it won't get you ranked in the top by itself.

You look at competitive key words and a lot of times the key word is not even on the page but yet it is still ranked #1.

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Earlier today, I spoke with eMarketing Strategist Rodney Brown of http://www.spheri.ca, whom you all know as fathom here on WebProWorld, regarding his views on Inktomi as a search engine in general.

A Search Engine, by Any Other Name... "When it comes down to it," Rodney told me, "a search engine is a search engine is a search engine. Two things make a good search engine and they are: Do the visitors find what they want? And do they like the interface? It has nothing to do wth ranking; those are questions the search engine optimization expert's are concerned with."

Stealing the Market Share. When asked what changes Inktomi would have to make to get to Google's level, Rodney reiterated views he's expressed previously here in the forums: "I don't think it's so much what changes they make as it is completely based on Google making mistakes. If people find what they want and if people are happy, they won't jump ship. ... You can use marketing ploys and branding and try to get new market share but can you physically acquire lost market share? Can Yahoo try to steal its lost market share from Google? There is a very low likelihood of that happening."

Monkey See, Monkey Do? He agrees with Jill that we shouldn't worry about making any changes in site optimization specifically for Inktomi or any other search engine. "If you optimize right now for Google, it basically comes down to optimizing for the visitor. The thing that makes Google Google is most companies are mimicking what Google are doing so there's not going to be much of a difference. ... I don't even look at Inktomi and MSN and Teoma because all sites that rank well in Google rank well there, but there isn't that much difference between their algorithms."

Nothing's set in stone. As we all know, the internet is full of gossip and hype. Rodney, who has been following this situation closely, also isn't too worried about Yahoo switching to Inktomi search results any time soon. He warns not to believe everything you see, read, or hear, and instead offers his more practical view: "When it comes right down to it, I carefully read all the documentation put out and I've never seen any confirmation of this, so right now it's all speculation. Maybe it's true. Maybe it's blown out of proportion."

Even if a dramatic change does take place, "it isn't going to happen over night." After all, it took Google five to six years to develop its market share, and he believes the changes at Yahoo will also be gradual.

Could Yahoo regain control? Rodney admits to this possibility, although it's not necessarily probable. But only time will tell...

So far as I can immediately tell, Inktomi as it operates so far is far more vulnerable to link pop manipulation than Google. Google seems far far more efficient at weighting rankings according to a wider range of factors. If my initial observations are valid, it would mean that getting high results for indexed content in Inktomi through link pop alone would be fairly easy, and much more than Google. However, as we've all seen, Inktomi is a bit of a hormonal engine, and cannot be relied upon to index content predictably. So I guess that means mixed results for all. :)

EDOT: Oh, and hello all. And a special hi to Janeth - good to see a familiar face. :)

Regarding this:

I never said that part not in quotes (emphasis added). I would never say that and I don't want people to think that I would. Brittany didn't put it in the quote, but with a fast read, it looks like that's what I said to her when we chatted.

As long as your page has good content and is optimized for relevant keyword phrases, you have an okay chance of doing well in the search engines.

Not that you should do well on the search engines.

And even then, only if you do other things also, like have lots of relevant links pointing to your site, etc.

I'm forced to agree with Janeth on this one (not that I have a problem with that, Janeth!) - keyword placement/optimization is definitely not the end all/be all of being found. Case in point:

http://www.itdc.sbcss.k12.ca.us/curr...altrainer.html

This page has consistently, for MONTHS been in the #1 spot on Google for the keyword "personal trainer", and it only has that phrase in the text 3 times.

In checking links to that site, there are 25 found by Google's link:URL tool, but I have to wonder if even 25 back links can garner a consistent #1 spot for so long?

-- Aaron

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Quite right, Janeth! If that's all it took, we'd all be out of work.

Jill

Brittany wrote:
I think there are should be more. Here is my list:

• · Provide comprehensive, relevant, fresh, and categorized search results,
  · Personalize the search while protecting users’ privacy,
  · Provide easy access to searched results.

I also believe that search service provider should serve web site owners. I started a topic at
http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?p=60085#60085

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Hey Brittany, could you please fix the link to my site in your first post?

Someone just emailed me that there's a comma in it so that it's a bad link.

Thanks!

Jill,

Welcome to WebProWorld! It's great to see you in our forums.

I have edited the original post so that there will hopefully be no confusion regarding what was said -- and I gladly fixed the link to your site.

Regards,

Brittany
Forum Host

Thanks, Brittany!

Jill

Welcome to WPW I, Brian and Jill Whalen!
It's really great to have you here. I think you'll find this a very animated and opinionated bunch with great senses of humor!

Jill, I am a subscriber to your newsletter and have learned a lot from you. I wanted to say a great big THANKS publicly.

I look forward to hearing and learning much more!

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I posted this in another thread about the move to Inktomi results so apologies if it's duplicated, but Yahoo are already experimenting with displaying Inktomi results across some IP bands, I have people in Europe and the US that are seeing partial Inktomi results and mixtures of results in the SERPS.

f

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While good points -- most of the web users are not "web savvy" or "search engine savvy" - most do not use all the functionality available and really don't care.

Google itself got big, and good because they went out of their way to accommodate their market (searchers).

Well not that realistic (beyond PPC/PPI). If you took this to newspapers -- the readership is what newspapers attempt to serve - and businesses look after themselves. Amazingly when you are "news" it's "free" in both as well.

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fathom,

See my reply at http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?p=60326#60326.

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Inktomi Insight. I called Ross Dunn today, looking for some insight into Inktomi, Yahoo's search engine in waiting that they will pit against Google here in the next month or two. Ross is one of my favorite SEO experts and my favorite Canadian.

He likes Inktomi's predictable and stable algorithm. It allows him to provide stable, predictable Inktomi placement to his clients. It's the StepForth office's favorite database to optimize for. If you have a good placement with Inktomi it may alter slightly, he says, but it won't drop.

From the searcher's perspective however this isn't the best scenario because it indicates a lack of algorithm upkeep that may deliver more spam than useful results, and deliver Google more searchers.

If Yahoo's going to make Inktomi a true Google competitor then their algorithm is going to begin to have a more Google-like unpredictability as they start dodging our optimization techniques and really striving for ultimate relevance.

So watch for some big changes in the Inktomi algorithm when Yahoo officially moves to only Inktomi results. (Probably at the time of Google's IPO.)

Ranking well with Inktomi (for now...) is simple, says Ross. Make sure you have good meta tags, keyword titles, and good body text with your keyword relevantly peppered in there about 3 or so times. Standard optimization stuff, what used to rank you well with Google. Don't spam them though. Check out Ross's buddy's article if you have any spam concerns.

Pay For Placement. I asked Ross about Daniel Brandt's observations that Inktomi drops unpaid pages (they recently dropped about 49,7000 of Daniel's pages). It's true. Ross says Inktomi is definitely an engine you should pay to be in. "I'll pay twenty bucks for stability any day."

Is that Canadian or US?

But seriously, it's probably a good idea to fork over a little dough right now for Inktomi placement. Get in early with Google's main competitor.

Ross has not noticed any difference in the Inktomi bot's behavior. Inktomi's bot's name is Slurp.

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Am I missing something? Yahoo has been taking Inktomi results two days ago.

How come everyone is saying that they are waiting for Yahoo to dump google and switch it to Inktomi?

Please correct me if I am wrong.

Thanks

Vivian

You ask me about Inktomi.

I have a small business obtaining 80% of its business form the web.

My main site has been ranked in the top 10 on the main search engines for more than one year, with a number of my main keywords, by simply becoming knowledgable and skilled in how to prepare my pages and how to correctly submit.

I have however registered with Inktomi and paid them some times ago, to see if it was worth it.

Since, I have not seen any improvment in my ranking - which was already quite good. In the reports they send me, it looks like no body or alsmost no one clicks through them. My $60 odd quids are going to last for a while!

I am extremely busy and have no time to become a 'Inktomi graduate' to be able to get top results with them. And this is my main critics:I do not ind their system user friendly.

I have had excellent results with Google pay per click which is very user friendly and leaves you in control of what you do and spend... Until I tried their network advertisement. Then I found my bill rocketting along with the number of clicks... but without any improvement in income for me. The bill went 5X... but no result as far as clients were concerned. To the point where I wondered if these 'clicks' were not an uncorrect count from their sytem. It has been a pure waste of money.

So I have stopped using them - I think they should analyze this deeper and warm their customers about the danger of advertising on their network.

Cheer,
Dom

Dom,
I wasn't aware that Inktomi had any PPC plans at all. I pay to submit by individual url. It hasn't increased my rankings either. Like you, my rankings in the SERP's were already pretty high for my keyword phrases.

The biggest thing to keep in mind has already been mentioned. This coming spring, when Google makes it's IPO, Yahoo will drop their Google results. Yahoo results will then be a combination of their own combined with Inktomi results. Because of this, the investment in Inktomi becomes necessary. You don't have to sink a ton of money in, but you should pay to have your top-level url's included.
It's been proven over and over again that Inktomi has dropped (and will continue to drop) hundreds of thousands of pages that have not paid for inclusion into their directory.

As for Google AdWords. Why don't you stick to the portion of the program you started with and just uncheck the box that says to allow your listings to be shown on "search partner" sites? The program was great the way it was and then they muddied it up for some of us.

I find the ROI on AdWords to be fairly substantial. But the "search partner" sites did nothing at all to benefit my business. I let it run a week and then killed it, put it out of it's misery (:

Good luck to you Dom!

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Vivian - I don't claim any special Yahoo expertise but to answer your question what people are saying is that the Yahoo results lately indicate that Yahoo is testing Inkomi or mixing them up, switching back and forth between Inktomi and Google, perhaps just testing ot perhaps readying the service for the final switch. I never use Yahoo so I can't speak to this personally but that may be where you're getting confused.

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Hi Minstrel. Thanks very much for your input.
I am obsessed with search engine rankings and I watch very closely of what my websites are ranking all day long.

I haven't noticed Yahoo switching google results and inktomi results back and forth. But MSN search has been doing that. They had what's called "Beta search" last night for couple of hours which were the inktomi results and then this morning, they have the old search back.

Does anyone agree with me?

Vivian

Garrett forgot the hyphen in Google-Watch.org. Some marketer who grabbed the hyphenless version of my domain name, and who has nothing about Google on his site, is getting some clicks meant for me.

About Inktomi, I'm seriously worried that Yahoo has little or no interest in the noncommercial web. I suspect that they will offer only token representation of .edu, .gov, .org, and their country TLD equivalents. They'll do this to make themselves look like a search engine, but their real interest is raking in the money.

What am I supposed to do with 100,000 pages in NameBase as far as Inktomi is concerned? Most of the names and citations of prominent people in NameBase, and in investigative books since the start of the Cold War, predate the Internet; we've been indexing for 20 years. We are tax-exempt and nonprofit. Many people search for proper names of individuals, corporations, and groups in search engines. If Inktomi plans to be a real search engine, it seems to me that they would have more than 300 pages from NameBase by now, after dropping some 50,000 pages last April. Is Inktomi as serious about deep crawling the way that Google is (despite all of Google's current problems), or did they decide that it's too much trouble?

Let's see now, $25 per year per URL comes out to $2.5 million. Oh yeah, that will work just fine, considering that our entire budget is under $25,000 per year.

I know what I'll do if Yahoo doesn't get serious about noncommercial indexing, and it won't cost me even close to $25,000. I've already got the domain yahoo-watch.org registered, and I'll start building up the site the way I did at google-watch.org.

Google-Watch.org

"About Inktomi, I'm seriously worried that Yahoo has little or no interest in the noncommercial web."
Daniel Brandt

Welcome to WPW Daniel! It's great to have you here (:

I think you should start it Monday. The writing is on the wall (:
I, for one would love to see what you do with it (being an avid http://www.google-watch.org/ fan) and all.
The advertising dollars the small business person is forced to spend are already out of control on the web unless he/she knows their way around SEO and can save a few bucks by getting higher organic rankings.

With Inktomi, unfortunately there is no such thing as a purely organic search result. There used to be, at one time, but those results are being dumped by the truckload! Just as Enron execs shredded important documents, Inktomi "shreds" the non-paying
pages into confetti...

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Monkey See, Monkey Do? He agrees with Jill that we shouldn't worry about making any changes in site optimization specifically for Inktomi or any other search engine. "If you optimize right now for Google, it basically comes down to optimizing for the visitor. The thing that makes Google Google is most companies are mimicking what Google are doing so there's not going to be much of a difference. ... I don't even look at Inktomi and MSN and Teoma because all sites that rank well in Google rank well there, but there isn't that much difference between their algorithms."

Okay folks let's get real, they are not the same and in many cases not even close. A simple comparision of results for the same terms will show that... sure the overall principles of optimization should be observed but I think it is unrealistic not to work the Inktomi tweak and develop a sense of the differences so better control of the placement can be attained.

With that goal in mind I have begun to develop a testing procedure for the various engines and how they reflect Goggle, Inktomi or any of the search results... looking at backward links for all search engines and seeing how they compare... doing searches and comparing placement... exploring partnerships and places to submit paid inclusions and seeing how they impact various search results... developing link exchanges and paying for text link ads... all these types of tests have to be done because just generalizing will get you decent placement across all engines, but not great placement and after all that is what we are supposed to strive for.

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Last Friday I asked Ross Dunn if Slurp, Inktomi's web bot, had been hitting their log files particularly hard lately. He said no.

When I talked with Jim Hedger on Monday he told me that Slurp crawled (or should I say licked?) extensively later that day and all through the weekend.

What does this mean?

It could be a last-minute index booster before Yahoo! officially launches the Inktomi results to their site.

Jim proposed, however, that rather than a sudden plunge the transition to Inktomi will be gradual. He also said that Inktomi's already pulling some weight on Yahoo's UK site, but when I searched for "Inktomi" I found that the results were just about identical.

Regarding the two bots he said that Slurp and Googlebot are similar in that they both follow links to find their way through the web. Googlebot, he says, still indexes far more than Slurp, though they both crawl as deeply into sites.

Inktomi's paid inclusion model makes full-site indexing bad for business.

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This sword cuts two ways if the Yahoo users find the Inktomi results deliver the relevancy they want, what incentive is there to shift their allegiance to Google?

Yahoo does not have to try to steal market share from Google, they have their very own 35% or so share, which means if the Yahoo Users don't jump ship Google will have lost a big percentage of their search share, but not because Yahoo stole it, but because it was theirs to all along even if the space was rented out to Google.

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If I were Yahoo and confident of Intomi's relevancy, I would time my shift to Inktomi results so that they appeared about a month or so before Googles IPO.

Alls fair in love and Search Engines, but then, given that Yahoo own a chunk of Google, they might just make more Money from a successful Google IPO than from search.

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Hi Daniel,
I wanted to address your concerns about the availability of commercial content in the Inktomi Index. We feel comprehensiveness is a core competency of a successful search engine. We need to provide users with comprehensive content for both queries with non-commercial as well as commercial intent. Anyway to get onto your individual case as you will have to let our actions in the coming year speak for themselves.

To explain the search engine perspective for the scenario you describe:
A search engine attempts to provide the best documents available on the web given the limitations of the size of its index. Therefore decisions must be made whether or not to include URLs based upon many factors. As a result of the web growing faster than the index size, a search engine would be forced to include less of a percentage of many sites in its index. The ideal scenario is that a search engine has unlimited index capacity and can include all the pages that it can discover and crawl.

The solution for non-profits that see themselves in this situation:
I started a program at Inktomi a couple of years ago that provides an avenue for non-profits to provide feeds for no fee. For people to subscribe please send an email to smssales@inktomiremovethis.com If you like please message me via the forum mail system and I will put you in touch with the right people to help set up this feed.
Thanks,
Tim

Hi Slurp
Nice that someone from Inktomi (that is correct is it not?) is taking the time to address this issue, which IMO is going to be critical to Inktomi's success as Yahoo's search engine.

I have noted with pleasure that Inktomi is spidering faster and deeper lately - keep it up we need a viable competitor to Google.

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Hey Slurp,

Welcome to WebProWorld! Thanks for the information regarding non-profits. That's good news.

Garrett

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