AV integrating Looksmart information

this would be the 2nd engine (INK); what does it mean?

[seoboy]

rumor has it that AV is beginning to incorporate looksmart titles/descriptions. i've confirmed this on a few listings.

they are now the second company doing this (inktomi is too).

does anyone have information on how this is affecting search results? i've suspected for some time that search engines will begin cross-checking listings against directories, in order to offer another tier of "relevancy boost".

we've seen this happen in the past with infoseek/go and the go guides, but not with the big boys. i've personally been expecting yahoo to start doing it for some time (maybe they will when they buy google <--*speculation*). i wouldnt be surprised if AV and INK are doing it too. this would be a nifty shortcut for complicating the lives of folks using "doorway domains".

has anyone seen evidence of looksmart listings positively affecting ranks in INK and/or AV?

seoboy

[DaveAtIFG]

AV seems to be ranking based purely on LS title and description and it hurt me. LS says they're adding an update/modify service soon and I may be first in line.

MSN displays them but still seems to rank pages based on their own algo/page content.

Added note: IMO, AV's still in transition as of this morning's rankings.

Edited by: DaveAtIFG

[rcjordan]

>AV seems to be ranking based purely on LS title and description

Agreed. I hadn't been paying much attention to AV -writing it off as "currently unstable"- but I just double-checked my LS listings and they are definitely flowing through to AV.

>and it hurt me

"Hurt" is an understatement. Save me a spot in line Dave.

[JamesR]

Case sensitivity really hurts, showing up on primary phrase number 6 capitalizing the first letter of every word but nowhere to be found when searching lower case as everyone does.

[seoboy]

maybe listings have changed recently, but i'm looking at some very competitive keyword searches and i've found instances of
(a) top 10 listings that ARE in Looksmart but are not utilizing LS titles/descriptions, and
(b) for one search that i'd rate about 6.5-7 on a 1-10 competitive scale, the top listing isnt even in Looksmart (while there are plently of LS listings that *could* figure in).

Clearly link pop is playing into this game as well, though in my (b) example that page only has 90 links in AV...

Very strange... I'm doing further investigating.

seoboy

[rcjordan]

>Clearly link pop is playing into this game as well, though in my (b) example that page only has 90 links in AV...

In my term's SERP, the two most popular sites (thousands of quality incoming links, have held #1, 2, or 3 rank for literally years) are blown off the page.

[seoboy]

clearly link pop isnt playing as big a part as it could. :)

but the looksmart title/description theory isnt the answer either. there's something funky going on.

maybe we need to sit tight and see if things stabilize a bit (if ever)....

seoboy

[rcjordan]

*bump*

>maybe we need to sit tight and see if things stabilize a bit (if ever)...
>
And another shift in the algo? [webmasterworld.com]