Robert_Charlton - 3:35 pm on Apr 16, 2001 (gmt 0)

Pretty much my thoughts... a fairly bleak landscape. We're really talking about two functioning engines, and even though we think about Fast as one of the big two, that may be only because it's working. The fact is that, via Lycos at least, it's not driving that much traffic.

For Inktomi... in another thread Brett suggested submitting a site that's linked to you and then a month later submitting your own site. Ink does still supply MSN, etc....

AV does indeed bury you. I made the mistake of trying the ransom note submissions option, thinking that it was so limiting that they wouldn't be penalizing for using it. Big mistake... Now I'm not sure how long it takes them to follow a link. They're ranking an ODP page I submitted (a rescue attempt) as #1, and don't yet show that I'm linked to it.

I fear that ODP is going to be a real bottleneck... and they may not find an Express Submission type option that can work with a volunteer editor setup.

If Yahoo and Looksmart aren't allowing themselves to be spidered (at least, not for free), there may be no dependable way to get that big boost quickly.

As I count the engines, the third tier you mention is basically just Northern Light... and I'm thinking they're spidering ODP as well... What does one tell one's clients?