Inktomi (PositionTech) PFI Performance Report

99.5% drop in traffic

[Paretos_Dog]

Here is a Positiontech report of my monthy click-throughs since October 2001 for my pages on my key domain. I have about 30 pages submitted through PT under this domain.

Oct-01 19699
Nov-01 23695
Dec-01 24839
Jan-02 24734
Feb-02 26495
Mar-02 33730
Apr-02 37062
May-02 17917
Jun-02 1996
Jul-02 2091
Aug-02 557
Sep-02 191

The total Internet-wide popularity of the keywords for which the pages in this domain were ranking has not declined overall during this period.

Unless my sites simply slipped through the cracks temporarily, I think this is very bad news for PT and Inktomi PFI. If my experience is typical, the value equation for the webmaster has taken a sharp and sudden turn into very negative territory.

[thejenn]

Have you checked to see where your rankings are on the partner site? Since Ink is pretty much only supplying MSN secondary results these days, that might be the cause.

Forget about ranking on Ink Pure search, go visit MSN and type in your phrases. You may be buried under pages of LS results. That's going to leave you with VERY little traffic.

The loss of the AOL partnership was a nail in the coffin for Ink. They need to get moving on building up some new partnerships or they're going to have serious problems. For now, I'm no longer reccomending paid inclusion on Ink to my clients. Their sites will find their way in eventually through incoming links, so no need to pay for what little traffic they are currently providing.

[Paretos_Dog]

I think there are probably three factors causing this huge drop in traffic. Two of them are under Inktomi's control.

1. Inktomi increased the size of their database. This was probably done to impress potential clients. At the same time, it penalizes the webmasters Inktomi is trying to court by increasing the competition for ranking. I really don't see how increasing the size of the database improves its "quality" at all.

2. Inktomi got nervous about the new FTC rules about disclosure of paid listings of search engines. I am speculating here but I think that the PFI inclusion program *did* provide