did Ink. change their algorithm

[LateNight]

I have been doing well with Ink. on a pile of keywords - today my pages are still indexed but my SERPs are gone. Have they changed the algoritmn?

[sabai]

whoopee! Back to the way it was!

[lgn]

Now that they have changed the algorithm back, I have figured out what MSN is up to.

The first group of sites (34 for my case) comes from looksmart, and those sites are pay for inclusion. I am listed #2 in pure looksmart but I never signed up for PFI. I guess they figured that my site was good enough, that I would get listed for free in looksmart. However it appear that they are only giving MSN the results of the people that actually pays to be included.

After the 34 looksmart listing, Im listed in the proper sequential order as I am in Ink.

Since Looksmart is history come 2004 for MSN, hopefully my position will move up 34 spots, without costing me a cent

[coco]

Hay what about me?

Don't get me wrong, I'm really very thrilled for all of you that have had their rankings returned. But I've just checked about 20 of my sites that disappeared, and nothing. Didn't check the rest, as my caffeine fuelled paranoia was starting to get out of hand.

Have everyone had their sites back in MSN? Can we have a show of hands or something.

[ralent]

I'm pretty close to where I was. I started getting MSN traffic again last night. Some keywords are a few positions lower than what they were but many are back on the first page.

[seth_wilde]

With Inktomi's partners displaying different results but using the same database, it's inevitable that talk about partners such as MSN is going to occur. But let's please stay on topic to inktomi and inktomi's results accross it's various partner sites and try to split off Looksmart discussions to another thread.

[DaveN]

before you start looking at all the other INKtomi partners you should first learn how to crack the pure search, it's a lot easier to workout what filters and how the geo targeting works within the partner sites. once you have cracked that.

DaveN

[epsrx]

DaveN, what do you mean when you say "crack the pure search"?

Also what Inktomi partners use geo targeting and what is it based on (i.e TLD)?

Cheers,
epsrx

[DaveN]

"crack the pure search"? get to number #1 in the pure search.

[search.positiontech.com...]

this is the INKtomi database without any of the partners playing with it. (apart form trusted feed)

DaveN

[Janet]

Hey Coco

I've got some pages back and some not. At the moment I'm grateful for what I've got back. Hopefully the others will not be too far away.

[coco]

Thanks for the feedback Janet.

I too have a few results back, so expecting the rest to get sorted out soon.

Coco

[fom2001uk]

Things are still very grim for us with lots of UK domains :-(

[fabulousjenny]

Same here in Canada... not good...

[fom2001uk]

This gets worse.

It now looks like ALL sites from the UK have been dumped from MSN.com, not just those from May!

I don't know about anyone else but more of our site's visitors (all UK based sites) use MSN.com, rather than MSN.co.uk.

This is disastrous. Hope it's not permanent.

[LateNight]

What criteria are they using to determine geography? Is it all based on .co.uk, ca, au? So much for the "world wide web". I sypathize with all that are no longer in MSN.com $$ - I am one of the fortunate ones that got put back into the MSN.com SERPS.

[fom2001uk]

The suffix doesn't matter. We have some coms and orgs but they all got dumped from MSN because they're UK sites (hosted in the UK) :-((((((

[lgn]

I wonder if their a basis for a legal challenge
here based on some sort of discrimination.

If you designed a site for Americans in American dollars, with American content, and with your merchandise being made and dropped shipped from the USA why should you be discriminated because your ISP host is outside the USA.

Its going to be a real pain to setup an ISP for each country that we do business in, and then we run into the duplicate content issues with google

[LateNight]

I have a site hosted in Canada that was put back into MSN.com, but is not in MSN.ca. It is as if the sites we evaluated manaully and a judgement call was made. My site is US$ - maybe that is the key.

[fom2001uk]

I feel sorry for anyone in the UK who's recently spent a lot on Inktomi PFI. The money's just gone down the toilet.

Paid inclusion is now a non-starter as far as I'm concerned :-(

[Janet]

Hey guys,

Stop with the panic. It's early days yet. They've been playing with their algorithm and it didn't quite work (IMHO). Now they're trying to fix it and it won't happen overnight. (Anyone remember how long it took Google to get itself back together after their big algo change a few months ago?)

This is my experience: I have a well ranking .com.au site in Ink/MSN. At the beginning of October all my well ranking pages disappeared from MSN and Hotbot. A few days ago some of those pages reappeared but not all came back. ALL THESE PAGES (both disappeared and re-appearing pages) ARE FROM THE SAME WEBSITE. So... individual sites are not being penalised.

MSN's just broken. Give the techo's some time to fix what they've busted. Go away and have another look in a couple of weeks. Yes I know it hurts. My client's pages were from an ecommerce site that was in the top 5 and he has lost money over this change, but there's nothing to be done.

Sit tight and give it time

[Polarisman]

I track my results and after having been number 1 for several of my key terms for months, on 10-1 all of my listings were lost. They reappeared on 10-22 for a day then disappeared until today.

My hypothesis is that indeed Ink was/is broken. Let's hope they fix this badboy before it goes live on Y. Not ready for primetime...

[Bob_Ricci]

I am a complete rookie compared to you folks, but using a particular software tool has enabled me to achieve excellent position for my design clients. I know, I know -- all I need is a text editor and know-how. But like I said, I'm a rookie :)

To the point, using techniques (legit) that previously got me excellent positions is no longer working. I've seen a slight increase on one site, but zilch on the others. I do appear in Pure Search, but very, very low.

What gives? What has changed so drastically, and more importantly, what is the basic solution? I have clients counting on me and I'm letting them down.

[fom2001uk]

It's quite simple. At the moment, if you have a UK site (or any non US site), MSN.com has banned you from their SERPS.

Everyone who's recently spent hard cash on Inktomi paid inclusion is watching it go down the toilet.

Is it temporary, who knows? Even if they are experimenting, there's no guarantee MSN will bring back non-US pages.

Is it still worth paying for Inktomi? No, not right now if you're not from the US. But soon, it will be, when Yahoo switches over to Inktomi (when, who knows? it was supposed to happen by now, anyone getting nervous?)

[makemetop]

>MSN.com has banned you from their SERPS...

No they haven't. They have demoted you in the SERPs. However, if you are a UK site and use UK in your title/description you will come up if people look on MSN.com for widgets UK.

I have a great deal of sympathy for those who have lost traffic, but there is always a silver lining. My MSN UK traffic has rocketed and my MSN.com traffic is more focussed. For every set back, there arises an opportunity. I'm buying a lot more .com domains now - just for MSN.com :)

[Bob_Ricci]

But I am a US site -- my servers are in Texas and California! PTI got back to me again and finally stated that due to their non-disclosure agreement with INK they could not answer my questions as to why and when.

[spaidermen]

No news in the last 10 days?
I am not still out in the cold, I am not USA-based. I have some PFI to renew but I am seriously concerned.

[panic]

There hasn't been much news since well before Oct. 31st, spaidermen.

-panic