My Inktomi clicks increased more than 3 fold

[defanjos]

What happened 4/8? My Inktomi clicks increased more than 3 fold in certain instances and double in most (compared to 4/1). Did Yahoo switch results from Google to Inktomi for a few hours?

This is a major increase in traffic, and it happened across many sites, so it is not site related.

[Mohamed_E]

Not sure what is going on. Normally my MSN referrals (all Ink) are very close to 10% of total SE referrals, for past couple of days have been closer to 15%.

I do not look at my Ink SERPs as closely as the Google ones, so cannot really say whether there is any change in my ranking.

[defanjos]

To clarify things, I looked at the stats on PositionTech only - so far anyway.

[mayor]

I think you're looking at reporting glitches at PositionTech, defanjos.

My reports show 0 traffic for 4/5 and abnormally low traffic for some other recent days.

The big spike on 4/8 looks like PT playing catch up in their reports.

Tommorrow's report will tell more.

[MetropolisRobot]

I'm not so sure on the error theory. I also saw a big rise in traffic via Inktomi referrals yesterday, but then the only gap in reporting before that is on the 7th and the rise is def more than 2 days worth of traffic. We are talking 88 referrals yesterday, WITH GOOD positions too, and then on the 5th, about 8 referrals.

I think (a) either the Inktomi algo has changed and really helped me or (b) someone is using the Inktomi results in a way they were not before.

Either way, smiling face today.

[defanjos]

I also think there is a lot more to it than just the PT glitch on 4/5.

Just checked the actual stats from one of the sites and these are the referrals I got:

Monday 4/8 ---- Monday 4/1
Yahoo - 393 --- 381
MSN - 376 --- 140
Google - 359 --- 349
AOL - 154 --- 152

Notice all SEs remained pretty much the same, except for MSN which increased 2.7 times.

At least now I know MSN is the culprit, a good culprit that is :)

Not sure why MSN increased so much, is it an Ink change or a MSN change?

[herb]

Are any of your sites in LS paid? I see spikes as the funds for the month run out and then kick back in a day or so later when the new pay period starts. Most of them showing up in MS

[defanjos]

Are any of your sites in LS paid?

I assume you mean LookSmart. I don't pay LookSmart at all, just PositionTech for the Inktomi inclusion.

[mayor]

The big PT 4/8 spike (2-3X normal) could not be confirmed by either an Extreme tracker or raw logs running on a PFI site. So I still subscribe to my PT glitch/catch-up theory.

[skibum]

Our Ink TF referrals saw a huge spike on 4/8 as well - through PT.

[MetropolisRobot]

Mine were through Lycos PFI program.

p.

[mayor]

MetropolisRobot >> Mine were through Lycos PFI program.

PositionTech is the backend of the Lycos PFI program so we would expect both Lycos and PostionTech subscribers to see the same reporting aberrations.

[mayor]

4/9 PT stats back to normal

[MetropolisRobot]

Mayor, thanks, I had no idea that PT supplied the Lycos stats. Have not seen my stats yet.

BUT, and not to be contrary, I still see that search terms that were not doing well last week are now doing much better for me. The particular term that drove all my traffic from Lycos partners in the last couple of days is still generating a #1 position for me...

Last week it was down in the 20s.

Something HAS changed. Just not sure what.

[defanjos]

Yes, it seems like it was only a PT hickup - oh well, it was too good to be true anyway. Now the stats for 4/7 and 4/8 are missing?

[jeremy goodrich]

There was a very bizarre glitch I saw yesterday, searching for 'widget phrase' returned totally off topic, terrible results, all down the page.

Then, refreshing the screen, the results were much better -> in line with Google for the most part.

At the beginnign of the month, around the 2nd or 3rd, I had a pretty big spike in Ink driven referrals through MSN, which seems to be steady still.

The glitch with their db, though, might explain some of the strangeness with their traffic...

[skibum]

Referrals here dropped off a little bit but are still much higher than normal.

maybe its just good optimization this time around :)

[mayor]

Jerely, there was an Ink update around the 2nd or 3rd of the month, so those changes should stick for a while.

[sem4u]

Jeremy, this has happened to me as well. On the Positiontech Ink Pure Search I did a search and up came a whole load of unrelated sites. Searching again gave the correct results.

[skibum]

Anybody see another huge spike on April 16th? We just saw a jump that just about doubled the number on the 8th.

[defanjos]

Anybody see another huge spike on April 16th

Not me, all seems normal.

[mayor]

Didn't see a 4/16 spike here. In addition, the early April gliches have been fixed and gone away on my PT reports.