A leather f*nny pack - Not from Inktomi

and what does this have to do with life as you know it

[stcrim]

I love the commercial side of of INK's PTP program. It's a small price to pay for consistant traffic from AOL and MSN and a tiny bit from the other INK portals.

But......... Today I was searching for a special "Leather Fanny Pack" and "pure ink, msn, aol, hotbot, etc" did not return one usable page (including the directory listings). The same search on Google returned over 40 "on target" pages and I purchased what I was looking for.

My point: Most of the places selling what I was looking for were mom and pop web sites with no clue about INK's pay to play program. So, they simply were not in INK db, period.

It was very frustrating to use the INK product and find nothing. It was also very eye-opening to use Google and find exactly what I wanted times 40+.

I believe that poor user experience will eventually catch up with INK - maybe not this year and maybe not next year, but in time people will become frustrated and stop using MSN and and AOL for searches.

If I ran the MSN or AOL search department, I would want to provide my visitors with the best and most reliable searches to avoid running the visitors off, which would filter down to my bottom line.

I think now is a good time for INKTOMI to start finding out what the end user's experience really is. Talking to real people who do real searches across all of their markets.

The PTP program may be a nice bit of cash now, but like so many dot coms it may also be but sinks the boat...

-s-

[Marcia]

I was just looking an an acquaintance's site a few minutes ago who happens to sell those, in leather. Yes, he is SEO savvy - but maybe it's time he should do some paid pages.

I'll sticky you the URL ;)

[IanTurner]

Are you sure that Ink wasn't just putting an adult filter on the results?

'f*nny' could be considerd an adult term in the UK.

(edited by: Marcia at 9:53 am (gmt) on Nov. 5, 2001)

[FreeBee]

>> I believe that poor user experience will eventually catch up with INK - maybe not this year and maybe not next year, but in time people will become frustrated and stop using MSN and and AOL for searches.

Very valid! It also has to do with the demographics of MSN/AOL users themselves. As they become more savvy they move onto other SE's that produce better results for their search queries.

Certainly in our experience MSN/AOL type visitors don't generally make good customers (low conversions) but we certainly see better informed clients (with msn or similar e-mail addresses) having found us via the likes of Google which does return the results they need.

So yes, MSN and AOL results fed from INK may be OK for some for a while but for real people looking for real results - methinks they already go elsewhere.

[lawman]

My website gets much traffic from M$N and A0L. And, of course, I pay to be in the Ink database. I get many online intakes from clients who did an M$N search.

However, when I search, those two are among the last places I search. G00gle is usually first, and N0rthern Light is often my second choice (I wonder why I don't get more traffic from NL).

I agree that at some point the masses will catch on. Ink and A0L will have to adapt to more informed consumers at some point.

Lawman

[pete]

Steve,

your point is on the money! We should copy your post and send it to some decision-maker at Ink. Not that they would listen though!

Freebee, find your comment interesting. AOL referrers and especially those from the subscription network are amongst our most prized referrers. Not the most sophisticated users but seemed to be more qualified then the others.

[stcrim]

Sorry - I didn't know that the word f*nny was a 4-letter in the UK - but it did't get filtered at INK - there were results returned with FANNY in them.

One of the many searches I did was Roma Leather Fanny Pack. That search "did" return one site with Roma Leather Products. "NONE" of the ones I looked at via Google were on the INK radar including the place I made my purchase.

The point is INK's PTP is very good for the SEO world - where as Google provides a more complete and accurate search of what's on the web.

I doubt I am the only one with this experience and opinion - I love the commercial value of INK but when it comes to actually finding something on the web, I use Google...

-s-

[FreeBee]

Pete - we have different exposure across the SE’s but similar target markets so I’m puzzled – definitely something to look into. :) (See StickyMail)

[IanTurner]

F*nny is not a word that I would want to use in polite company. It is not considered as outrageous as some other terms, but the meaning is different in UK to US.

I think 'Fanny Pack' translates as 'Bum Bag' for the UK market.