Oh, no! ... Oh Yes! ... Oh No?

New program to replace Inktomi, AltaVista and Fast

[internetheaven]

Anyone else get this in their mailbox this morning?

"As of the 1st March 2004 the following programs and services will no longer supported or offered:
- Inktomi Search Submit
- AltaVista Express Submit
- Fast PartnerSite

Any reseller orders received on the 1st of March will NOT be able to be processed.

Information on the new program, to replace Inktomi, AltaVista and Fast, will be provided on the programs launch and release date."

I don't know whether this is good or bad. Either it means that there will be one program that submits you to all of Yahoo's owned search engines (FAST, Altavista, Yahoo - Overture?) which means less hassle and better coverage for one submission. Or it means that we are about to be paying through the nose for any type of inclusion on Yahoo's property as there is only one way in ...

[troyid]

Which company did you get this email from?

[steveb]

Didn't get that here, but centralizing them all would be nice, regardless of price. Then you'd know either to do Yahoo or not, not be guessing whether this or that one was going to be discontinued or used.

[internetheaven]

If all paid inclusion systems in Yahoo are being condensed into one package, what about the indexes?

Altavista and Alltheweb now share the same (visual) free submission form. Yahoo isn't using strictly Inktomi in it current results, is this the beginning of Yahootomifastvista?

[helenp]

beginning of Yahootomifastvista?

I am afraid so.........
Had problem with Inktomi only spidered my robots.txt
but no problems with fast,

but now yahoo and Fast only spider my robots.txt as well, think I will go nut.

but scooter keeps spidering all my pages, for how long will keep that way?

[Chndru]

>beginning of Yahootomifastvista?

I doubt it. Considering Ink has partners with MSN, Yahoo wont put their $ to "improve" MSN. Ink would exist as stand-alone till MSN decides to pull the lid.