My beautiful description - Gone!

In Looksmart US and Inktomi's taken their description.

[makemetop]

After carefully crafting what I thought was a suberb 'call-to-action' in my Inktomi description, it has suddenly updated with my Looksmart US description which is awful! What can I do about it? Anything, nothing, anyone? I also pay Inktomi to spider the page, but not a lot of use if my description isn't going to be updated.

[stcrim]

makemetop,

The pages we pay for (just a handful) we keep away for our other pages. They are in a since a separate solution from all of our other seo work.

We do not link the home page to them because we don't want them easily found by wondering spiders. And we do not want them to be primary page in a directory.

I would build more pages with the same great discription and then more the URL in PT to point to the new pages.

[makemetop]

Sound advice. I'll give it a try if my rankings change. I no longer put any pages in the paid plan that are an integral part of a site and do, like you, keep them seperate. Interestingly, none of my rankings seem to have been affected (yet), so I'm loathe to touch anything with the top positions I've fought so hard for.

[bigjohnt]

I am confused. Two of three pages submitted for a client have descriptions and titles that never were on the page.(I know this,I supervised their construciton. In addition, those URLs did not exist until the day I Paid PT.
Any ideas?
Cross listing burping of the database??

[makemetop]

Now my home page listing is even worse - but I still come up for my major search terms but with no title or description at all! Just the URL with a submission date in 1970! Try this [hotbot.lycos.com] before it disappears - and look for my url. I wonder if this is because of conflicts between paid spidering, Looksmart listing and my permanent DB listing all trying to squeeze in to the same ranking?

[littleman]

For what it is worth -- I had a few hundred pages in Inktomi with a 1970 date about eight months ago.

[JuniorHarris]

littleman looks like the same problem again! My pages are showing a 1970 date and wacky/missing descriptions.

[Jim_Stob]

Hi All,

Just to give you an update on the missing titles and descriptions. Either the crawl or database build of 02/16 and possibly 02/17 did not process properly. Inktomi is aware of the problem and is running it down. Your titles and descriptions should be back up shortly.

Jim

[makemetop]

Thanks Jim.

>Inktomi is aware of the problem and is running it down...

As long as that doesn't also refer to my rankings (only kidding) ;)

[jilly]

Jim:

Just wondering if there was an update on this description problem? Just checking since ours has not changed back as of yet.

[Jim_Stob]

Hi Jill,

Many of the URLs are back to normal but we also know that many are not. I do believe that tonight's crawl and rebuild will be successful but unfortunately cannot promise it.

I and Inktomi do apologize for the inconveniences this has caused.

[stcrim]

Jim - thanks for the update - and as always, thanks for being on top of the situation

-s-

[jilly]

Is there another problem? My listings are showing Looksmart descriptions, not the ones I paid to have listed. I'm glad we're still in the database, but I am confused as to why the paid listings are not showing.

[makemetop]

Well, on last night's Inktomi update, the Looksmart/Inktomi tie-up seems stronger. On doing my usual check on search engine optimisation, it appears (using pure Ink. results) that sites who have paid to be listed in Looksmart now have their Looksmart description AND title displayed. Rankings, though, seem to be on page content but I think the Looksmart listing has a major part to play in boosting positions. I thought my high position for the term web site promotion was a glitch - but now, a week later and after this update I think that a combination of Looksmart and other good links are probably what is making it score.

[jilly]

We never paid for a LS listing, these were free. Our listings are very buried in Ink but it has come to my attention that the reason I may have LS descriptions is because, stupid me, I paid PT for listing my main index page, duh. It appears that if you are listed in LS and Ink with the same page, the LS desription will show up instead of the one you made for your paid pages. This would explain a LOT! So back to the drawing board to fix my mess-up!

[Jim_Stob]

Hello All,

Over the last several weeks Inktomi has released a new search engine with new relevance scoring. As with any algorithm change pages are moving up and down in their rankings. I believe Inktomi is pleased with the new spider but it should be noted that they are reviewing results and may modify it in the near future.

Inktomi does not provide us information about their algorithm, nor should they. Makemetop's observations, I do believe, are very astute and may provide an insight into Inktomi's new search engine. We do know that Inktomi is using descriptions from Looksmart and that quality links may play a higher role in relevancy. The Looksmart descriptions are under review.

To my knowledge the new spider is being used web wide. URLs within the Inclusion Program are effected first because of the 48 hour refresh, URLs in the general websearch database I suspect will be affected as the general database is refreshed.

Jim

[stcrim]

Jim,

Thank you for bringing some light to the INK/LS table. There has been quite a buzz about what's going on.

I really appreciate your efforts here and the outstanding customer service Position Tech has been offering to us all.

INKTOMI has been long noted for keeping everyone just a little off balance - looks like they are just keeping the tradition going.

-s-