MikeNoLastName - 1:24 am on Feb 17, 2004 (gmt 0)

Panic,
>I don't think there's such thing as an "average paid >customer" with PFI.

Um [aghast] Oh come on! I'm talking about ANY poor schmuck who clicks on the Lycos, "Submit Site" link, honestly believes their drivel enough to give them their credit card info (because there is no longer a way to FREE submit without paying for at least one PFI). Remember all THOSE people, who if it wasn't for them, submit partners (apparently like yourself?) wouldn't be in business?

>How is that self-contradictory? It's just telling you >that some parts of the site are for >resellers/partners only.

Uh-duh, it claims they are so "committed" to supporting PAYING customers, then turns around and says, but WE'RE not actually going to support PAYING customers, only those who keep the PAYING customers off our backs.

>>After a half-dozen inappropriate form e-mail >>responses, they finally "GUARANTEED" there was no >>penalty. I get the feeling, they "HAVE NO CLUE" what >>a penalty is.
>You should probably ask them who they spoke to.

Ah-ha, now YOU'RE the funny one. I just finished saying it took me 6 e-mails just to get beyond the form-mail responses, and finally to a supposedly live and supposedly Ink-authorized person at NetSol, (i.e. the top level with whom, I as a mere lowly, paying submitter, and not worthy of actually communicating DIRECTLY with the ilk of Ink, was to be once-in-a-lifetime-blessed with an utterance from) and then I'm to expect a second response after challanging their all-knowing intelligence. :)

>I don't think Inktomi or anyone should be forced to >refund money to people who use unethical SEO tactics. >That's the equivalent of someone saying that they >should get their money refunded after being kicked >out of a movie theater for causing a disturbance.

What if the disturber isn't even aware he's making a disturbance? Now you're sounding like one of them no-tolerance... ahem's. It's like that school kid who got kicked out of school this week for wearing the City of Climax T-shirt which the city itself printed! (Google it if you haven't heard about it)

>So is keyword stuffing, joining link farms, multiple >content, and other shady SEO tactics/strategies.

But you're not being forced to pay someone for doing it! If I PFI, I expect to get what was promised. If they can't or won't deliver they need simply say why and/or refund.

>That's going a bit overboard, but I don't think you'd >stand a chance in court, especially if their Terms Of >Service were violated.

I just re-read their terms of service. Nowhere are the words penalty, ban, multiple content, spam or any other reason for arbitrarily penalizing a site mentioned. It DOES however claim that all sites are ranked equally by their algorithm, which IS against their terms if there is a MANUAL PENALTY involved!

>If YOU were at Inktomi, would YOU want to be the guy >in charge of hunting down the people with editorial >actions and getting a hold of them via phone or >email?

Now you're talking nonsense. I was referring to those who submitted an address for PAID INCLUSION. When you do this you GIVE THEM all your contact info where they can send a simple response. They also return a status code to your submission manager page. They could just as easily send a code or message there. Sorry, no sympathy there.

>Yeah... I'm sure the people high up at Inktomi will >just do anything to exert their power rather than >make money.
Huh? I was paraphrasing an ACTUAL form-letter response e-mailed from NetSol, the people who I submitted to Inktomi through... Unbelievable indeed isn't it?

>Usually, webmasters of websites with editorial >actions against them don't stop their shady tactics. >In other words : once a spammer, always a spammer.

I HIGHLY disagree! Since we don't know the details of how these "editorial actions" are decided upon, I can only generlize. But here's some innocent reasons for instance:

Spamming: Bad SEO advice, corrected by a future SEO. Bad rumor mill tip. Remember at one time in the late 90's spamming was the ONLY way to get seen under certain competitive terms. EVERYONE was doing it. I didn't see an official notice when Inktomi finally fixed their filter. Were all the non-spamming sites just supposed to sit back and dry up as their competitors broke the rules. Now it's no longer necessary, so most people have stopped.

Duplication: Accidental copying of an updated index page into the wrong subdirectory. Transferring domains. I've read Soo many messages from people on this very website who still do not know how to use 301 redirect! Or for that matter if Inktomi and FAST handle it correctly. For instance if you submit a 301 redirect page into the spider submit field on Lycos it rejects it! Besides it could be as long as a year for Ink to revisit the old site to realize it's not there and remove it. In the mean time there is now an entire site duplicated. Shoot this could have been what happened in our case. We used to be hosted at a large ISP that got taken over. Some of our pages (remember the good ole days, 1996) were still multiply indexed as IP address paths, alternate addresses (www.isp-address.com/~our-domain/index.htm), as well as the actual domain all pointing to the same page. When we moved, the domain moved too, but all those other pages were still in the index since they never re-crawl free pages, and I even noticed a couple still in there to this day! What about someone who moves to an entirely new domain name? Or say from a free hosting site to a custom domain? Do they need to change every single page? This sounds like a serious Inktomi flaw.

>>If it's a duplicate penalty, what's to say the OTHER >>copy of a page on a different domain is not the >>duplicate?
>At which point, popularity of the page and domain >comes into play. If the content is really that good, >it'll have lots of incoming links to either the page >itself or the domain that the content resides on.

If this is true then my PR7 competitor can copy my original PR5 page from my PR6 site to a page on his site, point a bunch of his PR7/PR6 pages to it or simply replace an already highly externally linked PR6 page on his site with it, and voila he is now the "official duplicate". Then I get banned, he makes lots of money off of it to defend against me while I can't any longer afford to pay an attorney to file a copyright infringement case. Doesn't sound very fair to me. Another Ink flaw.

>Normally, the penalty still stands. Why would you >want to buy a domain name with an already tarnished >image, anyhow?

Noone would, intentionally. But again, imagine your average schmo who thinks up and registers what he thinks is a lucky find. Developes a whole site, then submits (free or WORSE YET PFI ahhh!), spends hours, days, weeks, exchanging perfectly honest links with others (whom I guess also get hurt because of linking to his penalty), and then waits, and waits. Only to eventually discover it was banned before he even started. I don't see any posted list out there with names of banned domains. Come on not everyone who develops websites on the internet visits this website, or knows what a penalty is. In fact most of the visitors to this website probably didn't even know until this post was started (shoot even customer support at NetSol doesn't appear to know to this day!)

>That's why you shouldn't have incompetent SEO >companies do SEO for you in the first place. But, in >that case, you'll have to contact Inktomi yourself.

Ah-ha! I'm glad you admit that... He-he, which brings us back to the start. HOW does one contact Inktomi for oneself?! :)

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