AV.europe - all new?

big merger complete?

[heini]

It seems that the long lasting and rather annoying merger of all country specific Altavista dbs has been completed.
On AV.de results are drawn from the main db by now. At last new pages and especially paid submissions show on standard searches, i.e. searches for german pages, not worldwide.
Australian and British members seemingly see the same thing.
What about other European countries - are you all seeing it?
And if so, whatīs the opinion on new algo/rankings?

[oLeon]

I am not amused...
Yes, could be that the merging is done - but did you try a search?
(software for driving schools)
The 1st search, only german [de.altavista.com]
The 2nd search, worldwide [de.altavista.com]

Really strange numbers...about 857,574 pages found in german, but only 73 worldwide.
I assume AV has to do a lot of work - or do you really mean that there are that many pages in the web about this kind of software?

[heini]

oLeon,
thatīs äh, well "strange"? Tried some searches over the last days, was generally quite satisfied with serps. But your example bites.

[engine]

You might like to see the latest figures for the db size here [webmasterworld.com...]

[heini]

engine
read that thread twice, still wondering.
The leap in AV.com db should have been much higher if they really had just plainly added all regional dbs. Does that mean AV has dumped loads of urls in the process of merging?

The searches oLeon pointed to anyhow reveal some serious problems. When filtered results are pulled, the algo seemingly is not applied at all. Many of the results are complete nonsense.
What about other European AV sites: Do you experience similar problems?

[engine]

>Does that mean AV has dumped loads of urls in the process of merging?

Well, that's what I'm trying to understand. On the face of it, the answer is they are not yet merged as I can't find urls in there as i would expect. When searching on AV.com I dont see all all the urls from AV.co.uk. Clearly, the algo/filtering is different.
I also wonder whether they will be merged in the sense of a merge we understand. If it is the case, then I would estimate the db to double in size.

[oLeon]

As I searched for Lufthansa [de.altavista.com], I couldnīt believe my eyes! Have a look at the top-position...nothing to fly!
Iīd like to say: there are two indexes, and the german is broken down! I donīt know how it should become a good deal when the trusted-feed programm is available in Germany.

[engine]

Perhaps there are some changes taking place as we speak. I do get some strange results at the moment. Perhaps we should wait to see if it settles.

[NFFC]

CMGI Europe president to quit mid-October [biz.yahoo.com]

CMGI results were ``average'' and the company had ``downscaled'', he said

[heini]

German thread, June 23:

Might this not be the beginning of a withdrawl from europe..?

Now what does this mean for AV.europe? Offices closed, only a small one left in London - they need a strong partner.
Will Goto come in here?

[msgraph]

>>Now what does this mean for AV.europe?

I'm beginning to like the new AV Europe system. It's pulling in a lot more hits in English from there than in North America. From the logs I'm looking at, I am getting about 10 hits from Euro AV sites for every single hit from North A.

But I think the majority has to with them not having GOTO AND OTHER FEATURED LIST GARBAGE that fills up the US version.

[heini]

Funny - or not so funny - thing is searching from European sites there are still a lot of inconsistencies.
I know for sure there are many people out there having paid for express inclusion who are not amused.

About Goto: sure I donīt like paid results, but then: how is AV to survive?
It would be a good thing to have more than just Fast results in Europe.

[msgraph]

About the paid inclusion, I think it is very good for getting traffic from the World-wide AV search from around the globe.

I am having very good success in reaching high rankings from pages submitted to the express. Here is my theory and please chip in if you think otherwise.

I would much rather see AV encourage paid inclusion submissions in order to drop Goto.com altogether.

In the US version, we have to deal more with sponsored listings AND two rotating DBs. One DB with a mixture between freely submitted sites plus paid inclusion pages and one DB with just freely submitted sites that are rarely updated.

With the world-wide DB I see only one verion of the DB that DOES NOT get rotated.(If I'm wrong here please tell me) This DB is the one that includes the free and paid-for sites.

So if you use the paid inclusion you will see results if you want to target the world-wide crowd. Paid sites do help you get closer to the top if you do them right. There really isn't a point in using it if you want to TARGET a US crowd, because you will have to deal with them rotating DB's AND sponsored listings.

I haven't looked into the country-specific searches so bare with me for I don't know what the ratio is to users searching for specific sites compared to world-wide. Any numbers on that heini, through your own listings?

[msgraph]

Ok, after spending a good amount of time doing constant refreshes in my browser, the World-wide search does rotate results like the US version. I don't see any real pattern to why one would show up more than the other. Maybe they try to balance it out somehow.

[heini]

>With the world-wide DB I see ... This DB is the one that includes the free and paid-for sites.
Agree on this. This was the core problem raising anger among people having paid for express inclusion from non dot-coms. Their paid submits went to this main db, which was searchable from all local AV sites BUT not on standard searches.
On local AV sites the default search options are set to
- local sites, meaning local TLD AND all languages.
So it was not the main db for standard searches, but the local.
Now with the suggested merger of all local dbs results on standard searches are pulled from this main db. But Iīm hearing complaints from everywhere that still newly submitted pages do not show up.

Now on european AV sites we find a new offer:

New! Add your country-specific URLs to the local index that matches your site's domain. Click here for a list of AltaVista's country indices

Now what does that imply?
Seemingly express submitted sites from non dot-coms will appear in related local AV plus in non standard searches on all other AV sites.
What about the non dot-coms having already paid for express inclusion? Do they have to pay again to add their "country-specific URLs" to the local index?

What interests me most right now:
Has anybody paid for Express inclusion of non dot-coms - and do your pages show in your local AV on standard searches?

msgraph
>ratio is to users searching for specific sites compared to world-wide.
For me itīs rougly 1/1 - Those very good listings I rather accidentally have for some KWs thanks to themeing donīt pull much traffic from either.
But standard is as I said: local TLD plus all languages. Unexperienced users donīt change option buttons on searchboxes too often.

[heini]

New design on all AV sites, at least all I checked. One template fits all - looks uhmm cost-cutting?
AV.com now is the only remaining site with a catalogue on the frontpage.

(edited by: heini at 1:46 pm (gmt) on Oct. 23, 2001

[Damian]

> Has anybody paid for Express inclusion of non dot-coms - and do your pages show in your local AV on standard searches?

I have and they do in the Dutch version.

You can use the advanced search function to search by date, it pretty much reads like a who's who in seo land if you set the date to a few days ago and search for a common word.
I guess it's safe to assume any website indexed on or after oct 17th at the moment of writing would be paid for.

Even tried one url that was blocked before, after paying it is in there now but can only be found by the url.
I did not check with other AV's.

[Damian]

Anyone know what these mysterious numbers / hostnames are on the local AV's ?

As in
gladadmin.pv.sv.av.com/10.28.32.214 j0 w0

or

quiksite2.pv.sv.av.com/10.28.32.108 j0 w0

They are in the left bottom corner. The ip's belong to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)
Seems to have something to do with the server used. It mentions "webserver ID" in a comment in the source.

[heini]

"We hit a glitch adding the international databases," Kaspar said.

In this article [idg.net] AV spokeswoman Kristi Kasper admitted av main db was not fully updated since July. Regional dbs werenīt updated since April. April !
So Damian, I guess youīre absolutely on point: the only pages getting in from European TLDs are paid ones.
Do you find those pages with search options set to
"Nederland" - "alle talen" ?
If this is really true, than we have a pretty good picture how many paid submissions are made....

Oh, about those mysterious numbers - anyone have an idea?

[Damian]

> Do you find those pages with search options set to
"Nederland" - "alle talen" ?

Yes. Where 'Nederland' is 'The Netherlands' of course, and 'alle talen' meaning 'all languages'.