Does Inktomi really delist you if you don't pay again after 1 year?

[webmaster4667]

I submitted pages into the Inktomi database last year through Position Technologies. I received an email saying that unless I pay again (which I knew would happen each year) that I risk getting delisted in the Inktomi partners like MSN, Lycos, Overture, HotBot, etc.
Do you know or do you really think that I am going to get booted out of these engines if I don't pay again?

[Marcia]

Welcome to WmW, webmaster4667.

Yes, your paid pages will be removed if you don't re-subscribe. If you've got unpaid pages in from the same site those will likely stay. That's what happened with mine, the free (in there before) stayed, paid disappeared.

[webmaster4667]

Thank you so much for your help. :-)

[Tim]

If you don't renew your subscription the pages will be removed when the subscription runs out. The pages then are treated as unpaid pages and are included in the index if they meet certain criteria. It takes a refresh cycle to inject the chosen pages into the index though. So there is a time period when the pages will be absent from the index.

[Marcia]

Thanks Tim, and welcome to WmW. Good to have you here.

>takes a refresh cycle to inject the chosen pages into the index

Two pages expired Jan. 20th. I've been waiting to see if they'd get back in and they're not yet, though four other pages in the domain they're on (free) still are from way before.

The little site the 2 are part of (in a directory of a partially developed domain) did incredibly well with MSN and AOL the two months it was up with the paid pages, in fact ended up only needing one. It should probably be on its own domain, which is why I'm waiting and pondering. But it would have already paid for itself, judging by those two months, so I'm not sure it's always worth *not* doing it.

With smaller, tightly focused sites, Google/MSN/AOL can be a very effective combination; I'm sold on it. Besides, to be honest I have to admit that 48 hour refresh is kind of addicting.