What's the Scoop on Inktomi?

[Brittany]

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?

[fathom]

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.

[Garrett]

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... :)

[janeth]

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.

[Brittany]

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...

[I, Brian]

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. :)

[Jill Whalen]

Regarding this:

"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, she says you should do well on the search engines.

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.

[aaronmp2003]

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

[Jill Whalen]

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.

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

Jill

[TaoOfSearch]

Brittany wrote:

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."

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