The New AOL Search Engine - Status and Rundown

What do we really know?

[Brett_Tabke]

AOL is using ODP data. If a one-to-one match between the search terms and a ODP category exists, it returns the ODP category first.

ODP Results Example: cloaking [aolsearch.aol.com]

In the past AOL has used Inktomi. However, there is a major new twist to the scheme - aol doing it's own spidering.

Example:
spider identification [aolsearch.aol.com]. It's probably a time sensitive search, but scroll down to the listing for WebmasterWorld and notice the ip address in the description:

152.163.188.231

Which resolves to cache-rh07.proxy.aol.com. That's AOL doing their own spidering, indexing, and listing - eg: it aint Inktomi no more.

This change has taken place pretty quietly. For the potential traffic that is there, we should know a great deal more than we do now.

Questions:
If you run "nocache" headers, will AOL still spider and list you? Appears so.
Where does Inktomi come into all this now? How many Ink listings are there still in there? (I don't think so - I can't find any recent Ink optimized cloaked pages showing up on AOL).

[4eyes]

Maybe I missed info on this previously, but

[search.aol.com...]
is still showing inktomi results.

[aolsearch.aol.com...]
is not.

(sorry if this is already a well known fact)

What does it all mean?

[mr_dredd2]

i'm seeing lots of my inktomi pages (position tech subs) in aol from various sites. I search from www.aol.com.

Previously, it seemed that aol just stopped at DMOZ, but it seems to me to be incorporating inktomi results now... ??

[Beyond]

Most interesting find Brett.

I think I'm still seeing some Inktomi listings in there, but no doubt at least some of those listings are coming from a cache spider. They are mixing in ODP descriptions and titles also on cache spidered pages messing up some test pages that would show this better.

Going to look at this some more tomorrow,
this could be very interesting...

[angiolo]

I'm seeing several inktomi (paid) pages: the main pages (of more sites) have the Looksmart description.

[Brett_Tabke]

That was my next question I had ready angiolo.

Are the Ink listings just the paid Ink listings now?

The newest non-paid ink page I can find is from April.

[lawman]

I just did a quick search, looking at the first page only. Depending upon the keywords, I found either ODP, Looksmart, or paid Ink listings.

Lawman

[angiolo]

Hi Brett!

> Are the Ink listings just the paid Ink listings now?

Yes, they are...