How to get into AltaVista.ie?

No appearance after 3 months submissions

[pobeirne]

I've been submitting pages from [url in profile - oldtimer] to altavista.ie (which is ie.altavista.com) since November last, but still not appearing. I've email tech support and all they say is "submit again".

Is there something I'm missing? Like giving them money?

TIA,

Patrick

Edited by: oldtimer

[engine]

Hi Patrick,
I don't have any .ie domains to manage so have not submitted to the addurl page. It does seem strange they are asking you to resubmit again. That seems to go against the general rules of submission - unless they are having trouble with the submission system.

Has there been any sign of the spider in all that time?

Do you know if ANY new pages have been added to the index in recent weeks?

[makemetop]

The only suggestion I can make is to e-mail them when you are about to submit your .com and then shortly thereafter. AV suggested I do this when I wanted to submit my .com to the Irish version as otherwise it will automatically reject for inspection any domain apart from a .ie.

[pobeirne]

Well, they do say they accept .com, .org and .ie. Just like AV India accept .com, .org and .in. No .net for some reason.

I have Scooter visits, but how do I know it's for the AV.ie index and not the general altavista.com updater?

Thanks,

Patrick

[makemetop]

Yes, they e-mailed me the same thing. However, if you look, there is a severe filter on .com domains and (same as UK) the majority that are listed must 'have substantive content for the Irish market'. This means that .coms are rejected until reviewed and (probably because of mass-submission tools) are ignored until they are made really aware of them. As I said before I would like to be listed in AV Ireland but am not based in the Republic so have no chance. Because the AV UK people who I e-mailed did not quite understand the geography, the advice they gave was what I passed on to you when they suggested I submitted my .com site instead of .co.uk.

I've had exactly the same problem in submitting some .com sites to AV UK and usually suggest that people set up a .co.uk domain, however I am VERY aware of the difficulties in setting up a .ie domain!

Keep at it and you should get in - but I know the frustration!

The scooter you get is probably the standard submission spider, but the DB filter blocks your listing (I think). Where did it come from?

[engine]

Was trying to find recent, new records added to the .ie db but found none. Perhaps they've just not updated. AV UK used to update more regularly, but, now they've build the db they appear to update less frequently.
I also found that some uk sites submitted to av.com were automatically filtered out into the uk db. That could be another way in. Link from sites already in the av.com db and scooter will, eventually, find a way in.

[pobeirne]

I have now analysed web log entries for January 2001 with "Scooter" as the agent. A count of the IP addresses gives me:

av-dev4.sv.av.com Count3
bigip1-snat.sv.av.com Count12
scooter.aveurope.co.uk Count9
scooter.sv.av.com Count2
test-scooter.sv.av.com Count4
tv33.sv.av.com Count11
tv36.sv.av.com Count2
vscooter.sv.av.com Count64

Anybody know what they mean?

Thanks,

Patrick

[engine]

Patrick, you might find some more info webmasterworld.com/forum1/206.htm [webmasterworld.com] and webmasterworld.com/forum11/187.htm [webmasterworld.com]

[pobeirne]

Thanks,engine, but I'm not really a spiderspotter. My question is, how do I know it's for the AV.ie index and not the general altavista.com updater?

aveurope looks promising, but it's .co.uk so may be only for their index.

I submitted a .ie site and it's in the .ie index in a week or so, so that must be it. They don't take .coms. Oh well.

Thanks,

Patrick

[engine]

Hi Patrick, as far as I am aware, av ie does not have it's own spider. aveurope seems to have been spidering and delivering results to the db of the local altavistas. The search results data is then filtered for the local altavista.

I think the .com db and the "others" are separate. When av started to create these local databases, they took a snapshot of relevant data from the .com

I'd suggest adding to the .com as well as continuing to go for the local add url. Certainly, av uk gives you this option.

[makemetop]

>I submitted a .ie site and it's in the .ie index in a week or so

They will take the .com - you just have to keep ploughing at it by e-mail. The spider will not take it - on AV UK it has taken me up to 9 months to get a .com in. It is not that it won't be accepted, it is just that the .ie DB is programmed to take .ie domains with no hitch.

Pleased you:

a) Got a .ie domain (any tips?)
b) Got in eventually.

I'm in Dublin week after next - maybe a pint?

[pobeirne]

I posted another .ie site I'm associated with, not mine. (Can't give URLs here!)

.com - keep on trying, then, is the consensus. 9months good grief!

pint week after next - Fri 23 Dublin?

send me Stickymail for contact info

Cheers

P.

[engine]

Good luck with that one Patrick. Don't forget to come back and tell us how you got on.

Enjoy the Guiness.

[pobeirne]

I just checked altavista.ie - and we're there! web page Dates from Feb 9.

Whew. I'm getting more .ie emails now!

[oldtimer]

Congratulations! This job certainly teaches us patience!

Enjoy the guinness even more now.