Change in AOL?

Have they dropped ODP results?

[Robert Charlton]

I just ran several searches on AOL to check the competition, and the search landscape there seems very different... with a lot of spam. One client site that I'd seen there many times before is nowhere to be found. I then realized that the client, while in ODP, is not in Inktomi.

I also ran several of the same searches on Position Tech's Inktomi engine, and yes indeed, in most categories I tried, the AOL results are looking just like the Inktomi results.

Have I missed something, or is this new?

[2_much]

They seem to be constantly changing. I keep running into both sets of results.

Any ideas as to what's going on here? I wonder if they're thinking of dropping Dmoz?

[Robert Charlton]

ODP results have reappeared in two searches I just checked....

[rcjordan]

I've noticed a slight increase in aolsearch referrals. Yesterday, I saw a skyscraper ad for AOL 7.0 and then a big commercial on CNN last night. I wonder if there has been a search tweak somewhere on the new release?

[msgraph]

Looks like AOL just made an update today? Just had a site show up in the directory index that hasn't been there before.

[Brett_Tabke]

Ya, they did update. I meant to post that and got side tracked last week.

I'm noticing a downward trend in odp referrals from them. hmmm.

[Robert Charlton]

ODP results on the test search I've been running have disappeared, reappeared, and disappeared again since my last post. Just checked again and the entire first page of results is from various French language ecology sites having nothing to do with the topic searched. Second page is a variation on what I've usually been seeing on the first page.

PS - And now they're back to normal, without ODP results... looking to be pretty much straight Inktomi.

[oilman]

Robert - are you searching directly from www.aol.com? When I do I still see regular ODP results for my sites - I don't have INK pages for those particular sites.

[Robert Charlton]

No, I've been using a shortcut that takes me to --http://search.aol.com/ -- The results are not always identical on the first search. Sometimes some AOL user sites or a few miscellaneous sites seem to show up in the search from www.aol.com, but usually the results are the same or close to it.

In any event, what happens is www.aol.com always is redirected to the search.aol page after the first search... which is why, for reasons of consistency, I decided to bookmark that one in the first place.

[michaelday]

I would like to add that in my opinion AOL produces the least relevant results for almost any search term that I could think of.
eg.
term -- news

results
1. [kaissa-thegame.com...]
2. [peterspipes.com...]
3. [anonymise.com...]

[Robert Charlton]

To update this... in the past couple of weeks or so, I've noticed that AOL results I've monitored are once again using ODP listings, and they appear to be fairly stable.

[ebgreen]

All of the highly searched for keywords or phrases will come from ODP, while Inktomi will supply most of the less searched for keywords or phrases. ODP is definately updating on AOL very reguarly.

[oilman]

>>once again using ODP listings

I've been seeing pure INK results for the past few days. Haven't once seen the good old ODP listings.

[agerhart]

Just to reinforce, we are seeing some of our new INK listings showing in top of the AOL SERPs......I'm not complaining.

They did a very large update.

[dvduval]

Way to go AOL!
The Inktomi results are SOOOOO much more relevant than before. Now let's see you do something cool like bring competition to your PPC listings!
For Example (how about this layout):
Sponsored Links:
#1 Overture Result #2 Overture Result
#1 FindWhat Result #2 Find What Result
#3 Overture Result #1 Kanoodle Result

Dupes eliminated. Nice and compact as now.

[Robert Charlton]

To update this... in the past couple of weeks or so, I've noticed that AOL results I've monitored are once again using ODP listings, and they appear to be fairly stable.

I now have a different take on this. What I think I was seeing was updated Inktomi results.... I had a site with a very high ranking in AOL via ODP. As best as I can figure out, it disappeared completely when Inktomi results came on... then reappeared recently when Ink finally indexed it and ranked it in the same position. I didn't notice the difference because the ODP description is essentially the same as my meta description.

So yes, AOL results I'm seeing are now entirely Inktomi.

[agerhart]

Is anyone seeing the ODP results back in AOL.....I for one am not. Anyone else?

[angiolo]

>Is anyone seeing the ODP results back in AOL..

Not yet!

[backus]

Okay, STRONG ODP results have been dropped from AOL. I'm well and truely peeved!