What does INK actually give to a partner?

[tedster]

When Google results show up on Yahoo, they are essentially the same rank, with some results filtered out. But Ink partners can show wide divergence in what they display in the serps. I have one page that swings from #1 through #14, #24 and #75 on different INK partners.

I'm guessing Inktomi either offers to customize the algo for a partner, or they provide customizable building blocks, instead of just a straight database and index. Partners take a lot of latitude in merging in other data, as well.

All of this makes judging the effectiveness of a PositionTech purchase a bit more challenging. However, the page I mentioned above is not a paid-for-spidering page. Maybe those will be more consistent across the partners. I'm waiting on my first experiments to find that out -- and this page is one of them.

[stcrim]

From the people I have talked with at INK I understand each portal has it's own filtering systems for the standard INK data. I also understand those controls once set, are rarely touched... But it does mean you have to tweak pages for each portal - we target MSN

Steve

[tedster]

Steve,

Thanks. That's what I was assuming, but it's good to know for sure.

Got any hints for MSN? That's often the lowest one for me, and yet it still pumps out decent traffic. I'd love to kick it up a notch.