Excite is kicking me in the teeth

What does it use to rank pages?

[grnidone]

The subject and description of this post say it all.

I would be happy just to be in the top 50 in this search engine, and I can't even do that. As far as I understand, Excite *just* looks at content that is not code, alt tags, or meta tags.

Is that correct? What's the trick?
-G

[seoboy]

you're pretty on the money for the "old" excite - straight text with some meaty kw content was a good approach. good wordy sites did well.

but keep in mind that there's a shakeup of some sort going on over there right now. new face to the results, and the first major results shakeup (read algo shift) in about a year.

our first page listings have all been pushed down to the second page or lower, and the top 10 look like either they're either link pop, themes, or click pop driven. too soon to tell for sure.

seoboy

[grnidone]

Hmmm. Just took a look at the new Danny Sullivan newsletter and I quote:

"[Abbot Chambers, Excite's Senior Director of Search and Directory Products] said Excite is also making mroe use of link text, something that's been a key component of how Google works. The idea in that regard is that you examine words in or near the hyperlink to determine the relevance of the page being linked to. For instance, if a link says "Great Place For Books" and points to Amazon, then the usage of link text would understand that Amazon is relevant for the word "book."

Do you all have any input on this?

Thanks,
-G

[NFFC]

I could show you why it won't work but the content is adult[ish].

[rcjordan]

I think that it's a part of the same idea referenced in the authority hubs [webmasterworld.com] thread. When trying to guage the likely quality of a site, polling third-party links TO it seems to be a good way to make a guess.

[grnidone]

NFFC: I'd like to see it. Some of the best promoted sites are "adultish". I need to learn this stuff any way I can and if I have to look at "neked" people (I live in Texas) to do it, so be it.

email: [e-mail]

-G

FYI: "Naked" people don't have any clothes on..
"Neked" people don't have any clothes on and they're up to something.