Paid but can't be found in Ink.

Should I pay again?

[sachac]

My site was indexed in Ink for a long time until it disappeared several months ago. I then decided to pay for it to be indexed.

My problem is this. My site name is www.brandwidgets.com. When I search for "brandwidgets", sites that list our products or have links to us show up but not our site. There is also no listing for us under "brand" or "widgets". Surely our site should be the first listing at least for "brandwidgets".

When I search for "www.brandwidgets.com" the site show up, which indicates that the site is there somewhere but not showing up.

Can anyone help me solve this mystery?

[kanetrain]

"What was the reason they gave you?"
Panic - I don't feel inclined to share such information in a public forum.

As a side note... If *someone* works for a PFI (Trusted Feed) Company, it could definitely take away some of their credibility on these issues. I don't mean to say that they can't weigh in on the issues, but it can definitely explain the one-sided thinking.

I'm only speaking hypothetically... those who read this thread should know that some posters here *may* have ulterior motives.

[MikeNoLastName]

Thought I'd check in again on this topic just to keep things interesting:
1. Not only did I get a personal e-mail from Lycos on my FAST PFI complaint as previously noted, but I got a SECOND PERSONAL e-mail from a very helpful support person at FAST! Apologizing that during their integration of search functions with Yahoo! that our site had been "inadvertently blocked" <-(exact term) and was in the process of being re-added, which I indicated in a prior post has indeed happened.
So, stick that in your "must-be-a-good-reason" pipe and smoke it Panic! And make that TWO kudos now for Lycos/FAST!

Meanwhile, for those who have been following my travails so far, that brings my PFI helpfulness score to:
Lycos/FAST: +2 Fixed
NetSol/Inktomi: -1 Still Broken

Guess who I'm going to be using from now on?

2. Also on the topic of NetSol and Ink PFI, I just got an e-mail from Network Solutions last night which said that at the end of this month they will be transferring management of their SureList(sm) service to Position Technologies(R)! Gee I wonder why?! Maybe because NetSol found out they $#ck at it?! Did anyone else get this yet or did they just dump ME for being a pain in the @$$?

[flobaby]

Mike,
I just wanted to congratulate you on getting some justice. That's wonderful to hear and heartening for me, since I have so little faith in getting past the form emails.

You go, boy! :-)

[kanetrain]

Mike, Congrats!
I have good reason believe there were/are at least a few sites that were inadvertantly "blocked" or marked with "penalties" in both Fast and Ink (all PFI pages) that should not have been. I have many reasons for believing this but some penalties or blocking were unwarranted.
Just like any system, there are issues that need to be worked through. Whether it's human error or a system error, this stuff happens from time to time. It's totally understandable... and I think the main issue is just the matter of identifying the problem and fixing it, that's the biggest issue. Kudos to Fast for being... Fast :)

Unlike some, I really don't mind the idea of PFI. I think, if it's done correctly, it can be great. You get to change pages on a regular basis and get your content refreshed regularly etc. And if it works how it's supposed to, you get the peace of mind of knowing that your site will always be in the index. It hasn't exacly worked that way for me... but if I can ever get my situation straightened out, I will definately use PFI as a large part of my marketing campaign.

[MikeNoLastName]

Well here I am for my weekly update on how badly Inktomi $uc#s. As mentioned before in this thread, I wrote to ALL three known support e-mail addresses at Ink and except for one form letter from Slurp-help to which I replied with more explanation, no new correspondence from them over the last week and counting! FAST/ATW/Lycos Still working like a champ!

So that brings the PFI helpfulness score now to:

Lycos/FAST: +2 Fixed (STILL!)
NetSol/Inktomi: -2
Still as Broken as ever + no reply in over 1 week!

I'll be re-sending my previous review request to the three addresses once a week, until I at least get a reasonable response as to why it has banned.

[Tim]

Hey mikenolastname. Try [e-mail] or sticky me directly.

[MikeNoLastName]

Well, here we are again. Another week. Little progress.
DID get a 2-line lackadaisical response from inktomi slurp-help that our domain WOULD be re-reviewed, but no guarantee of when, how, or if really truly ever.

Responded to Tim AND the address indicated as suggested with all the appropriate info on Tuesday. No response whatsoever from either and it's now Friday.

Noticed that the crappy rankings have now crept from Inktomi to Yahoo, since they started including the Inktomi database.

It's ALMOST funny. Like a little war going on inside the Yahoo! SE servers. Shortly after I got the Inktomi response that they WOULD re-review our penalty, most of our pages showed up back in Yahoo!, just like on ATW, but unlike ATW, they are now obviously still highly penalized. Yahoo!s way of straddling the fence? (actually more like Netsol/Inktomi's prior responses: "of course you're indexed, see? That's all you're paying for. There's no such thing as a 'penalty'. Now read our Simpleton FAQ to learn how to rank better"). It appears since about the time we started complaining to Inktomi and Netsol deferred to Positiontech even our Paid PFIs have disappeared entirely from Hotbot/Inktomi altogether. Maybe that's a positive thing.
Actually our pre-PFI rankings have not yet returned on ATW either, but they seem to be improving slowly. You can only find them on Yahoo by searching on the domain name itself and then clicking on "more pages from this site". If you search on ANYTHING else, including, for instance a line or two of the text from the page, or even "domain.com" followed by title and some text, you more often than not get about a half dozen PR1 pages which copied our description and link to our page, and our page isn't even in the results.
I DID notice one interesting clue to their algorithm though. If you search for a fairly long string (8-10 words) which happens to be a <H1> that page IS strong enough to barely break through the penalty. So apparently <H1>'s count for a lot more on Yahoo! than regular text.

As mentioned previously NetSol has fled Dodge City and left Positiontech to pick up their mess. The day Netsol sent a notice saying they were outta there, and left a forwarding address at Positiontech for my account, I tried to access it and the address didn't work. I sent a response to Netsol, to let them know the forwarding address was not working, and they were already in form-response mode, disclaiming any further responsibility.

So that brings this week's PFI helpfulness score now to:

Lycos/FAST: +2 Fixed (STILL!)
NetSol/Yahoo/Positiontech/Inktomi: -4
Still Broken + no meaningful replies in over 2 weeks!

I went straight from -2 to -4 , and added Yahoo/Positiontech since it's basically the same story even with two new different companies.

Well that's about it for this week.