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Is Inktomi's permanent spider a weekly visit? We have had consistent visits from slurp and slurp.so in the past.
Has anyone seen their free listings in the permanent database dropped since the paid submit began? Seems to be a decrease in spider visits recently.
Then I tried the PayForPlay
Got the page to #3 for a great KW on hotbot #1 on MSN an #6 on directhit
So I started playing with the page by adding text links to other sites from it and those sites still don't show up on any of the partner sites
My opinion the free submit is a dead issue and like WebGuerrilla said why push your non-revenue spider when you can make $$ from the other.
Whit so many new partners showing up for this service it's only a matter of time before the free is 100% gone.
It would be nice for INK to have an affiliate program for repeatable SEO firms to buy into like Position Tech & Network Solutions. Although, it could be a nightmare to manage. I bet INK would be better off having the ability of monitoring a handful of SEO, firms that allow the "gateway" into their database, than to get their free database spammed.
I will continue to use the paid submit for the index pages of my sites (for now) and hope that their spider will pick up the rest.
I'm sure I'll do some paid listings with Ink at some point. My concern is "if or when" the free (permanent) listings start dropping off.
::Looking for some wood to knock on.::
Darned composite desks...
This is part of what I was talking about.
Let's say Im canada.com and I have to pay for INKs Database then I would want to compensate for that by charging users to submit to it.
INK is charging for the partner sites to use the database for their results but they are also charging to submit to through other partners. It looks like that are just grabbing as much revenue as they can by offering this type of service. If their main concern it to combat spammers then maybe the need better filters.
Take a look at AltaVista, They still offer free submit and even though their database has been haywire the last few months they still have a strong product for listings. Their spider has now rebegun to deep spider and pick up pages
If you compare INK to Google and see that Google does a GREAT job at combating spam and returning relevant results (for free). Googlebot is one of the best spiders out there. (imho)
Don't get me wrong INK does have it's great points for the paid inclusion and I have seen the results of it by getting my site from nowhere to top 10 positions for many competitive terms, even though it still has some bugs it has worked on by me so far.
I think the "free submit" has much to be learn from the "paid submit" and some day it might catch up, but until the I'll just have to rely on guarantee's that I can pass on to my clients. Because in the end it's our clients that suffer from not getting listed and listed well, and if I have to pay $15 per page then it's my job to make sure my clients understand what they are getting for their money.
I just dug through the first 300 links on hotbot and directhit and my paid positiontech page is GONE!
Where was I on this thread [webmasterworld.com]
Big Bumer!!
I agree that Google produces more relevant results. However, the problem that they all face is the fact that there is no direct correlation between relevant results and revenue. The only reason Google is still spidering and listing sites for free is because they still have some money left in the bank.
The fact that everyone is jumping on the Google banwagon and raving about their terrifc results doesn't contribute anything to their bottom line. Inktomi, AV, Excite and all the rest have at one time or another produced highly relevant results, and they are all broke.
IMHO, this is all just a bi-product of search engines abandoning revenue models that include charging a fee to access their databases. User contributions is the only way you can ever increase your bottom line by producing more relevant results than your competitor.
In the current "all content must be free" environment that exists on the web, the only item of value a search engine has is to sell is the order in which it returns results. I don't see any portals rushing to replace Ink with Google because doing so won't help them make any more money.
They will however, abandon Ink for any other database that helps them generate more revenue. It has already happened with Looksmart. Many of Ink's partners bury Ink listings underneath LookSmart because LookSmart increases their revenue.
In order for Google to protect partner deals in the future, they will also need to build in profit generating/sharing options. With giants like Yahoo scrambling to figure out how to retrieve their stock from the toilet, they will definitely consider new partners (like returning to Ink) that won't cost them money.
Ink just announced a PPC program for large sites. They also said that these listings will be featured at the top of Partner sites, and I'm quite confident they will end up giving partners a cut. Their free AddURL, and free crawling spiders will be dropped as soon as the paid database grows big enough to handle the majority of searches.
All the end users who despise the commercial nature of the new breed of search engines will need to warm up to the idea of paying a subscription fee to access a "pure" non commercial database. If there aren't enough people willing to pay, then web search will eventually become 100% pay-to-play.
I may be wrong, but my understanding is that the 1000+ page sites will pay little or nothing initially to get the frequent spider deal, but they pay for hits and the split in payment is between the portal and Ink. A big encouragement for portals to use Inktomi.
I've seen no degrading of my PT listings (yet) so I think we should bide our time and see how it pans out.
[Quick edit for startup - and another for spelling] - I agree with links, no submissions have been needed for my site, I stopped in September - nearly every page has been picked up, even ones I didn't want!
Now the Yahoo angle(Bang, its okay I have fallen off the chair before): this gives Google until the end of June to come up with their own version of paid ranking or PPC(I know what they have now).
If Google is smart they will do it before they see the red ink.
