Teoma popularity

How popular is this search engine?

[PFOnline]

Hi, I run a website and went to teoma.com and typed my keywords in the search and was amazed to see my link come up in the first page, 6th from the top! But strangely enough, I dont think I've ever gotten 1 hit from Teoma, according to my webstats.

So my questions are:
Is this a fairly new search engine?
How many searches or visitors does it handle a day?
How is it humanly possible being 6th from the top and gotten no hits!? hehe

Thanks

[edited by: heini at 10:39 pm (utc) on Sep. 22, 2002]
[edit reason] no site specifics please / see TOS [/edit]

[PFOnline]

OMG, I'm 6th from the top on AskJeeves for the my keywords too... But again, my webstats say I've never gotten any clicks from AskJeeves or Teoma.

Maybe somethings wrong with my webstats.... Or maybe people just aren't clicking it.... Guess i just find it hard to believe to be 6th from the top for that search and not get any clicks!

[edited by: heini at 10:40 pm (utc) on Sep. 22, 2002]
[edit reason] yep, again ;) [/edit]

[c3oc3o]

AskJeeves bought Teoma and use them for their results, so that you rank the same on both is no wonder :)
What software are you using for your statistics? Since Teoma is fairly new (and also recently changed their querystring syntax), if your stats package is not up to date, it may not recognize referrals from there as SE results. If you click through to your own page yourself, does that show up in your stats correctly?
Plus, Ask/Teoma is used much less than, say, Google - it would be a surprise if more than a single-digit percentage of your SE visitors came from there.

[JayC]

Guess i just find it hard to believe to be 6th from the top for that search and not get any clicks!

Of course that depends on what the keywords are; or more specifically on whether many people actually do search for those terms. But if you know they are worthwhile terms and you are getting traffic on them from other search engines, as c3oc3o said it would be reasonable to expect substantially fewer hits from AskJeeves or Teomo than from Google, MSN, or AOL (though of course there probably are exceptions).

[mosley700]

Huh.
I have several traffic-tracking programs installed.
They show me every single visitor, down to the one with just one hit.
I got Google sending quite a bit, then Yahoo!, then MSN (paying Looksmart for those), dmoz, attworldnet, dogpile, overture, etc etc, but NOTHING from Teoma.
Not one.
So my guess is, nobody uses it.
:)

[chiyo]

Teoma is like google 3 or 4 years back

good innovative algo
limited database
few users

'nuff said..

[WebStart]

Yep, re nuff said, except frankly, I don't think any of them count for much anymore for retailers, except Google, Yahoo and MSN; maybe Ask Jeeves, but I hardly get anything anymore from Lycos, or LS, though my positions there are as good as they are on Google and Yahoo. Direct Hit is gone, likewise long gone the old info search, and also Excite now. Not much left of the originals, not much left but 2nd tier found through the PPCs like OV, FW and Sprinks.

Anyone else had a similar experience? Frankly almost all my hits now come from these three: Google, Yahoo, and MSN, in that order. Whether paid or free, they are the source.

[mosley700]

You forgot one: AOL. Since they kicked Inktomi to the curb, my AOL traffic has exploded. (Especially cuz Inktomi had me banned for "keyword abusive meta title". )
I get more from AOL than from Google, so:
Google
Yahoo
MSN
AOL

[chiyo]

Webstart, perhaps my too subtle suggestion in my post above was that you should be looking to the future.

Nobody except with major prescience would have predicted that Google would have the influence it has now 3 or maybe even 2 years ago.

Im sure one of the reasons that Google treats us kindly now is that were indexed by them from the start. Its why we care about where we are NOW in Teoma, Alltheweb, and Wisenut.

The Web moves fast...

[martin]

For me it's:

Google
Yahoo
MSN
ODP
AltaVista
AOL

Yes, that's true more referers from ODP than AltaVista and AOL. My site is rather small and new though, it may be an exception rather than the rule.

Btw, what are your bets for the SE of the future:
Teoma / Fast / WiseNut?

[mosley700]

You mention the ODP. How much are you getting from the ODP? I usually don't get more than 2% of my traffic from the ODP. (But adult sites do get more traffic from the ODP.)

[martin]

I actually get even less around .5% from all ODP sites.

I don't have much data available though and no I don't run an adult site.

PS. The note about adult sites really surprized me.

[WebStart]

Chyio

I agree about looking to the future; so it is important to pay attention to Teoma, WiseNut and Fast. But so far, I don't see those at their stage now, as having what Google had when it first started, and if you asked me to be specific about that, and quantify it, I don't believe I could. But - I don't think they have what Google had, and now has. But who's to say what the future holds.

Also I did forget to include AOL. Since Google started providing their results I have gotten a lot of traffic from AOL, actually now better than what I get from MSN.
Have also started to pick up some Netscape clicks, from their Google listings.

[mosley700]

Re: ODP
I was surprised, too, by the ODP traffic. My home improvement site gets almost zilch from the ODP, while an adult oriented site gets quite a bit. I assume that people browsing adult sites like the ODP for their objective descriptions. Just a guess.

[allybongo]

I think the most important thing to remember about ODP is that whilst you may not get much traffic from them they are crucial in getting listings with Google and also from other SE's.

[mosley700]

"I think the most important thing to remember about ODP is that whilst you may not get much traffic from them they are crucial in getting listings with Google and also from other SE's"

Precisely. While the ODP may be a club of corrupt SEO quacks, it is for some reason used everywhere. Very important for PR.

[xbase234]

Teoma is often touted as a threat to Google, but I don't think it will ever be close as long as they work on paid inclusion.

I'm not knocking them for doing it, it's just that you can't call yourself an academic search engine when ranking can be bought. The only way to submit a new site is by paying them.

As a user, it makes me think the SERP's are tainted ("hmm, paid search engine, guess I won't be able to find research papers, homepages, etc.").

As an internet marketer, I don't like paying for a one-page submission to an engine that doesn't send traffic ("hmm, $30 per page, but I have 15,000 pages, Teoma hardly registers in my logs, why bother?").

I really don't like to rag on Teoma because I was pretty excited about their concept when they debuted, but the paid inclusion blew it for me. If they would simply offer a legitimate, working "free add url" option, and also juggle some of these results into their SERP's, then their credibility would rise quite a bit.

[Brad]

If you have plenty of good inbound links you will probably get picked up by Teoma -- for free.

All my sites have been picked up by spidering.

[martin]

They picked my site too. I think they are most likely to follow links from ODP and probably Yahoo.

[xbase234]

I decided to give Teoma a re-visit. I think my perception that PFI *completely* tilts the rankings was not as accurate as I first thought.

I did find a lot of my own sites that were spidered. More weight seemed to be placed on sites with Yahoo! and ODP directory listings. I also found some SERP's that seemed to include and bear weight on PFI sites, when compared with Google SERPs. I even found a few SERP's for popular searches that incomprehensible as to why the #1 results were even listed.

Even though my impression may have been somewhat incorrect, I'm willing to bet that many other people have the same impression because of exclusive PFI. Teoma should still offer a "free add url" option - maybe with a time limit (6-8 weeks), and refer to the PFI as "Express Inclusion".

I don't mean to sound cynical. If I didn't think Teoma had merit, I wouldn't be posting this message -

[julinho]

I see a gradual increase in hits from Teoma, for every one of my already (for free) indexed domains.

Also, I see a gradual increase in the number of domains being (always for free) indexed.

[Marcia]

Still going steady, consistently right around 4% for sites that sell stuff ladies shop for. I do believe a lot of ladies like to Ask Jeeves. They're sites that the AOL demographic would likely go for.

[Brad]

Not a lot of action directly from Teoma for me. But they keep picking up my sites for free so I won't complain. Personally I like Teoma. I'm starting to use it more.

Marcia,

Ask Jeeves is doing nicely for me too. Nice steady hits. Slow but steady growth. It is looking good. If it is women using it (and I suspect you are right) this is a very powerful market. The AJ UK version seems to be catching on too.