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Having looked into it, I can;t work out, especially on MSN, what benefit Inktomi is considering that the Inktomi (ie web pages) results come way after the web directory (think it's looksmart? - am I right/wrong?) results, meaning that your results, even if you're at the top are way down the page numbers.
I would like to get my way into Lycos results, but can't seem to break that one, so what use is Inktomi to me?
I'm based in the UK and Ink is in my top 3 of SE’s, the company that you were talking to are correct about the importance of MSN & Ink.
It all depends on how competitive the search phrase is, but most of my clients use a mixture of Looksmart & Ink to get the rankings they want with MSN. So a submission to looksmart making sure you have your main keywords with the description, then followed up by optimised pages for the more obscure keywords submitted to Ink and you’ve pretty near covered MSN.
You would be amazed how many people troll through the listing on MSN to find very some very odd keyword combantions I have with Ink, but they do!.
Most of my clients get around 30% (msn.com/uk) of there traffic using this route, not forgetting all the other SE's that take results from Ink in the UK, AOL, Overture, Hotbot, Freeserve (will show overture results), Looksmart.
P.S I Didn’t realise you were on my doorstep I could have walked to you faster than writing this posting :)
I can ask a former boss, they are now an ink partner, if it really matters...
The thing is, if a company is involved with the inktomi PPC program, then you won't be able to beat them in rankings (because they are paying ink more than your paid inclusion money) and their algo has everything to do with money (read Overture/Findwhat) and nothing to do with relevance (read Google).
So yes, they are incredible for marketing. For research, they are useless, but honestly, how many people that need to do research on the net would really use MSN? AOL? IWON? (I'm speaking from the perspective of a person in the US)
If this thread on getting fuzzy keyword data [webmasterworld.com] makes any sense, it's a good way to start thinking about inktomi. You get click through on terms that aren't in the commonly searched word list, for any product, once you pay, because the number of search terms is actually quite large, but the frequency near the edges is very small...I know, that probably didn't make much sense.
Bottom line is if you are selling something, try a test run, see if the ROI could work: if so, crunch the numbers, project a reasonable length of time to recoup the investment, and then make the decision on whether or not to pay for more pages from there. Hope that helps!
Wouldn't be too concerned about them changing algos anytime soon - that would be like taking most of their paying customers and showing them the door. Can you imagine all the heavy hitters who are footing the bills at INK all at once having to optimize all their pages again...
But there may be more than one algo depending on the level you are paying for...
-s-
So like most things it's not what you know, but how much you’re prepared to pay to find it out
The keyword stats from the individual paid inclusion pages are nice as well.
I can sticky you some more info if you like, but basically, the SEO firm who's a partner gets some benefits, like access to their db just like the regular paid inclusion, but this way, they don't really have to optimize the pages ( I think.) The firms pricing plan I'm most familiar with, whom I used to work for, charges a hefty upfront pricing, and imho, that should only be considered for a huge site, with lots of money to flush...
A company with a "hefty upfront pricing" (as you put it) could only survive if the quality of its traffic is high. Otherwise people would feel ripped off and the company wouldn't have any clients. If the company prospers, it must be doing something right, and worth a look.
In regard to the Inktomi system, there are SEO's which are IC partners. Some of these companies are listed on Inktomi's website at [inktomi.com...] in the "Index Connect Partners" sections.
Sidenote to Jeremy: If this is the company you've alluded to in the past, you might mention that it has been well over a year since you worked for that company and a lot may have changed.
-qianxing
The thing about these pages is if you search on MSN for widgets, then yes the Inktomi results will be buried under the Looksmart listings of every company selling widgets. So you take 1000 URLs with each containing a unique and different kind of widget. Then optimize those pages around that kind of widget. Then when someone is searching for your particular widget on MSN they get your page, and you get a higher conversion rate.
Alta Vista was also at the show pitching the same deal. The difference I found was that AV was offering something like a 5 day refresh. Inktomi was talking about a matter of hours, and was open to negotiation on how often they refresh your listings.
Hope this helps. It did for me! :)
