Strange Inktomi results

Can anyone explain this?

[skeetch1]

I am often confused with some of the listings at Inktomi. Type in "atlanta internet marketing" in the pure inktomi search, for example, and the first site listed has none of the keywords in the title or description (or on the page). The listing/description that appears seems to come from Looksmart, but the site doesn't show up in Looksmart for those same terms (except of course in the Inktomi results).

Can anyone explain why this site is ranking highly for these terms in Inktomi? Thanks in advance.

[Rumbas]

Hi skeetch1. Welcome to WebmasterWorld :)

Have you heard about cloaking [searchengineworld.com]. Seeing is not always believing.

Check out our forum here about Cloaking and Stealth [webmasterworld.com]

[keywordbuys]

...if Inktomi provided results to everyone it would be nothing but spam. Talk about an easy to cloak engine.

[skeetch1]

Yes, I am familiar with cloaking/ip delivery- but I was curious as to why the description was coming from the Looksmart listing. Does Inktomi draw descriptions from Looksmart rather than title/meta description sometimes? If so, when? If this is the case, this would explain the listing to which I referred, if cloaking was being employed.

I have also seen at least one site that had several different pages, each optimized for separate terms, but an ODP listing for the home page came up for each term in Inktomi rather than the separate pages (even though the ODP title and description did not include any of the keywords). In other words, the site was ranking well for the targeted keywords that were spread out over separate pages, but the listing in the Inktomi results was always the main ODP listing, regardless of the keyphrase.

I hope this makes sense. I feel as if I am missing something fundamental here, and of course there is such a fine line between clever and stupid. Thanks again for your responses.

[stcrim]

This has all been sort of touched on before but never really brought to light. INK is or appears to be in one fashion or another borrowing bits and pieces from ODP and LS.

In theory, you can't cloak LS or ODP if they are reviewed by a human.

Best to consider the results from INK a somewhat mixed up version of some directory and paid pages and Old Pages (aka: BOW)

-s-

[skeetch1]

So perhaps Inktomi uses the regular page elements to rank the page, then checks to see if it has an ODP or Looksmart listing, which it will display preferentially over the page title/meta description. If this were the case, cloaking could still get you a high position, even though the description displayed came from Looksmart or the ODP. Would this make sense? I apologize if this has been gone over extensively before.

I am also wondering if anyone else has optimized a subpage of a site for Inktomi and gotten good results for very specific terms, except that the listing that appears is the Looksmart/ODP listing rather than the subpage.

[tigger]

I think it's the BOW that keeps throwing people out when checking the SERP, I've a client in the BOW with an index page that has "click to enter" and an image, nothing else and he's number 1 for his main search term, but the sites been around since day 1