Web Directory Sites

Not from LookSmart?

[bawhitney]

I'm looking at a site that ranks #1 for an extremely competitive keyword. The page that comes up is a .htm page at the root of the site.
This page is not in the LookSmart directory (although other pages from the same site are).

Does MSN draw from another directory or is MSN simply out-of-date?

[Beachboy]

It is reported that people at MSN often hand pick favorite sites to rise to the top of their search results. Unfortunately.

[martinibuster]

MSN draws from Inktomi, too.

[skibum]

I think MSN search is a crock of $--t. Full matching of a phrase in a title or description seems to be required of John and Jane Doe's sites listed in LookSmart. We used to have sites rank in the top-10 for a variety of keywords that had exact matches in the title and/or description. Now they are lucky to be on the third page behind a bunch of sites that don't even have all the words of the phrases in the title and/or description.

There must be some way to grease the wheels to gain rankings. The rules definately apply differently to different sites. No doubt about it.

Could be an indication that MSN is moving away from L$ & Ink at least for the top results in competitive keyword categories.

[flexsez]

web directory sites are from the Zeal.com database.

[bawhitney]

Zeal.com - Bingo (never heard of it before)

There are unpaid listings in this directory.

Thanks

[martinibuster]

Looksmart and Zeal are the same thing. I'm a zeal editor/contributor and I can browse the zeal database and see the Looksmart paid listings, but I can't add to them. I can only add sites to the non commercial areas.

[Axacta]

Martinibuster, could you please come to the following thread and your two cents... thanks.

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