Sources of search listings at inktomi partners

[Marcia]

It was mentioned in another thread that MSN is almost purely Ink. It would be helpful to know the different sources where some of the most prominent partner sites get their mix of results and also, to be able to tell which listings are from which source.

Prompting the query is having noticed that under one search term at MSN, for a fairly competitive category with the first 11 being directory listings, the following several pages ranging from #17 to #61, are almost exclusively redirected doorway pages, all going to the same totally off-topic site. Looks like somebody goofed here, and it needs to be fixed - the whole category is trashed except for the directory listings at the beginning.

Who feeds each partner, and is it possible to tell where results come from?

[stcrim]

Marcia - first, is it possible we can have a look at the search you are referencing above???

BTW, before all the changes ANZWERS and INK.YAHOO were delivering what I call pure INK (if you could match thier algo tweakings, you could do well with most of the INK portals. Now, the target (for us) is MSN... Do well in MSN and you can do from fair to great in most of the other INK portals

[Marcia]

Sure, it's a search for hand made crafts at MSN:

[search.msn.com...]

Now, either I am imagining things or I saw a change happen right in front of me. That other site starts showing up top of the second page - in fact it looks like they either have more pages in there now, or some others have slid into the midst of those.

Just before, I was #41 in the middle of that - good barometer, it's a half-baked single page I'm figuring out what to do with, a great candidate for experimentation with 48 hour spidering - 41 less 11 directory less 20 of theirs equals 9 out of pages.

NOW- I hit back on the browser, refreshed and went on, and there mine sat at 36 (if I remember right it was 27 the other day, but not 100% certain).

I will watch and keep track, but knowing MSN's sources would help - to double check with who is feeding them besides Ink. I'll need the info to decide whether to go ahead with doing more paids.

BTW, I emailed position tech support to ask about this site when I signed up 8 days ago, and never heard back, and they're still there.

Added: I just refreshed a few more times and it switched back and forth - not imagining it.

[tedster]

Well, this explains a lot -- I manage one site that gets strong MSN traffic for a kw, but my recent check showed it on page 5 -- much too far down to account for the traffic I see on this word.

Now I see it pops back and forth between page 3 and page 5. Page 3 makes a little more sense.

[Marcia]

Still happening. I'm hitting back, refreshing and going to the page, and it's now switching between 42 and 36. Also with refreshing on the same pages. Very interesting.

OK..so tedster, page 3 is still adequate for MSN traffic then, right? Are there a lot of directory entries at the beginning of your category?

[stcrim]

There's a lot of older discussions on the now I'm here and now I'm gone or I'm number one and now I'm number ten and oh look, I'm number one again.

I have a lot of wild guess as to what's going on - no hard facts...

Anybody????

[tedster]

>> Are there a lot of directory entries at the beginning of your category?

Yes, I see a very similar pattern to what you described. Lots of directory entries combined with very simple doorway pages.

This is not a happy picture for my client -- or for people searching on their exact keyword, since results are more diluted with marginally related sites.

The principle kw is a compound word "aaaabbbb", and many of these only half match. That is they are promoting a related word, "aaaacccc". The ranking algo looks less sophisticated now than it did 6 months ago!

On a guess, the reason page 3 can bring in strong traffic is that the poor relevance is obvious and right on the surface, so people naturally drill down a bit.

[Marcia]

Forgot all about this:

Search Engine Partnerships [searchengineworld.com]