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Who uses them? Hotbot, Lycos, MSN, Ask Jeeves...is that it. How much weight does it really have?
Now by a boost, I mean that I have more of the guys filled in. I'm already at #1 or #2, so the position doesn't change.
So for about a minute a day, I can get some small benefit.
Someone want to write a tool that allows you to punch in a url and a set of keywords and have it punch it for you? I suppose that I'll get around to it eventually.
Has been tried in the past with Perl but to no success. Like Jimmykav said, they must be tracking by IP.
In case you haven't read it yet, we had some discussion about the Direct hit algo recently, as regards to the click thoughs, etc here [webmasterworld.com...]
I believe that if you've gotten their spider to come around, you'll do okay. I haven't ever optimized specifically for them, so I can't say exactly what elements to put into the pages, but my standard efforts include good site navigation, H1, bold, links off site, on site themes, and a keyword density around 6-12%.
As long as you can find your site by keyword, you'll do okay. Even if it's not near the top, rotate the ip you surf on, via proxy or what have you, and keep clicking. I'm sure it will help.
a) Are you talking about very short pages with the 12%, in which case it makes sense? or...
b) How are you computing that 12%? Say you have a 100 word page with a 3 word phrase... Are you calling one occurrence of that phrase 1% (ie, each word occurs once in 100) or 3% (3 words out of 100)?
The pages are also not terribly long on content, but then, I don't calculate the densities every time. There are many reasons you can end up with larger desities than this, and still do okay, if you are including the keywords in the anchor tags to the rest of your site:
say you have 5 products, all with a 2 word combo as a phrase, part of the description, and in the hyperlink to the product specific page detailing all the nitty gritty about your "inexpensive widgets." Add those links together, with the little product descriptions you might use, if it's a catalogue style page with a cluster of related products, and you easily end up with high densities.
I recently started seeing them spider my site and thats what spurred the interest.
Honestly I cant see the effect of Direct Hit with all the paid stuff in the way.
Now it makes sense. For my basic density measurement, I just look at body text and exclude all of these things (though body text does include hx headings and link text). I think different sections should probably have different densities.
How would you regard the phrase example I gave above? Is a 3 word phrase used once in a 100 word text a 3% density or a 1%? I tend to think of it as 1%... but I find not everyone looks at these things the same.
Also, to get more back on topic here, I do think Direct Hit is important because it affects positioning on HotBot and other Inktomi engines in various ways, as well as Lycos... and that DH affects the first results reported on HB. I've always thought that whatever would generally do well on Ink, AV, Fast would do well on DH.
Regarding densities, I think it's possible to go too high... noticing this on Google, where in really competitive areas, the body text densities (and this depends on how you measure them :) ) are under 5%, often under 4%. Links are skewing the very top, but I'm not seeing anyone that's super dense.
I don't think you can boost yourself by clicking through (carefully and discreetly) on anything popular. On rare terms, one of the dangers is falling out because of non-use, so when I do occasional test searches I tend to click through... and I do that on DH too. Not sure it's enough to amount to anything.
I get visits from their spiders, but when I ocassionally stop by their site and search for my site by business name, I always get "no results"...
I don't pay much attention to them at all.
<edit>the typo queen strikes again...</edit>
Edited by: mivox
Does anyone know how often you can boost your click throughs without getting caught? (or, is once a day noticeable or should it be once a week?) (Total side note: Is there any other engines/directories that you can boost your rankings with click through traffic?)
Thanks in advance for any and all answers to my questions.
You've asked a lot of questions, I'll try to get them all, but if I miss one, please let me know.
When you first enter their db, I don't know where you appear, but I recall from their white paper a while ago it was "high enough" to start collecting click data, and there by either move up or down, depending.
After you're in, take a look at this: [webmasterworld.com...]
We were discussing the click through data, etc. and how you should do it properly to increase your rankings.
The other engines that track click through data: pretty much everybody, these days. But how many of them use that data? Publically none, unless you count inktomi, but then, I feel their relevance is equal to money paid in. Just IMO.
Their traffic isn't great, but worth it for Ask, MSN, Hotbot, and Lycos. Between the directhit syndication at those places, as well as AOL, and others who use their data like meta engines, they are more than worth your time.
However, I believe that if you read through the posts above, you can get a good feel for how to gain in position there.
Again, welcome to the fora!
thanks in advance
the gnome
So, to get ranked well in directhit, you need to submit your site to them. And later on, it will start appearing on their partners search engine results pages.
Are these sites that are found in other SE's ie Lycos, etc; hence they are given more relevancy just for that link and not click throughs? If that is the case I don't get it. We have a gagillion (ok that's an exageration but you get the point) links on Lycos that were "thrown" out there by a previous promotion company. Wouldn't this affect us on DH? Or are these combo's of:
# of links + click throughs = A spot as partner results.
Let me know. I could be WAY off base here, and they just might be paid listings. Looking forward to hearing from someone. Have a good one!
Ali
P.S. Off the subject stupid question: how the heck do you guys get those smiley faces on here? Love them!
ali
