The Axandra newsletter archive

6 August 2002

This week we answer your Inktomi questions and tell you why a ten years old text-only Web browser is still important for your search engine ranking today.

* Why is it important to be indexed by Inktomi?

Inktomi provides (part of) the search results for more than 50 partner sites, for example About.com, America Online (AOL), .com, HotBot, ICQ, iWon, LookSmart, MSN Search and Overture.

* How do I get listed on Inktomi search engines such as MSN Search?

Inktomi was the first pay-for-inclusion search engine. The quickest way to get listed in Inktomi is through its paid submission service. Pricing is on a per-URL basis. The first URL costs US$39/year , each additional URL costs US$25/year.

* How can I confirm that my Web pages are in the Inktomi index?

1. Go to http://hotbot.lycos.com
2. Enter "originurl:http://www.your-domain-name.com" (without the quotation marks)
3. Click the Search button
4. If your Web site is in the Inktomi index, HotBot will display a listing of your Web pages.

* How can I influence my search engine listing description?

Inktomi uses the first 200 letters of the META Description tag to generate page summaries for its results. The length allowed to the META Description tag depends on the partner site.

* How do I get a top ranking on Inktomi powered search engines?

Inktomi is one of the only search engines that prioritizes META tags when generating its rankings. It uses both the META Keywords and the META Description tag.

* So META tags are everything for a good Inktomi ranking?

Unfortunately, no. It seems that there are a lot of other factors that influence a ranking on Inktomi.Four months ago, we finished the biggest search engine ranking study ever conducted: We analyzed 103,260 top 10 Web pages to find out why they are well ranked in the search engines.

We also analyzed Inktomi search engine rankings and listed our findings in the inexpensive Inktomi ranking report . You can download a free sample report here .

Is your Web site not getting listed in search engines? Is your Web site listed but it's not getting top rankings? In our series we tell you the 19 common mistakes for low or no ranking and what you can do about it.

Reason #13: Your Web pages require a full-fledged browser.

When search engines crawl the Web to find new Web pages, they use special software for it, called "spiders", "robots" or "crawlers".

These crawler programs don't have the functionality of full-fledged Web browsers such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator.

In fact, search engine robot programs look at your Web pages like a text browser does. They like text, text, and more text. They ignore information contained in graphic images but they can read <IMG ALT> text descriptions.

This means that search engine spider programs are not able to use Web browser technology to access your site. If your Web pages require Flash, DHTML, cookies, JavaScript, Java or passwords to access the page, then search engine spiders might not be able to index your Web site.

Therefore, it might be a good idea to test your Web pages with very old versions of Web browser applications or with the software program "Lynx", a text-only browser.

Lynx is available for download here . Here's an online version of Lynx that allows you test your Web pages with a text-only browser quickly and easily: http://www.delorie.com/web/lynxview.html .

"Simulation of a search engine spider", see how search engines see your Web site:
http://www.delorie.com/web/ses.cgi

• Query recent additions to Google
  
  
• Five Google interviews
  
  
• META Description tag for AltaVista
  
  
• Search term position on AllTheWeb/FAST
  
  
• Document types, WiseNut vs. Google

* How popular is your Web site?

Link Popularity Check is a Windows program that finds out how popular your Web site is. It's freeware and a "must- have" for webmasters.

* ARELIS - The reciprocal links manager

What's ARELIS? It's the first software program that provides a serious, spam-free reciprocal links solution for professional webmasters. Reciprocal links can get you a lot of targeted traffic and they improve the link popularity of your Web site in the search engines.

Jack Humphrey of WebmasterTrafficTools.com says: "Well, simply put, ARELIS is dreamy! It is fast, easy, and everything about your reciprocal linking tasks is handled from one screen.

I highly recommend ARELIS to new Internet marketers and webmasters who want to get their directories set up at lightning speed without having to read a 500+ page help file."

Try ARELIS now:
http://www.Axandra.com/arelis/download.htm

* Did you know?

One week ago, we once again paid the monthly commission to our affiliates. If you want to be one of those lucky affiliates, join our affiliate program. Our two-tier affiliate program pays you 35% + 10% for the sale of our products:
http://www.Axandra.com/affiliates.htm

* Marketing and promotion Web sites we recommend

If you want to publish one of the above articles on your Web site, you're allowed to do so! However, you must not change the contents in any way. Also, you must keep all links and you must add the following two sentences with a link to www.Axandra.com: "Copyright by Axandra.com. Internet marketing and search engine ranking software ."

Please recommend this issue to anyone you know who is interested in search engine facts. It's a good way to stay in touch with your clients, too.

If you're receiving this issue as a forward, and would like to get your own free subscription, visit

http://www.Axandra.com/subscribe.htm


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Copyright © 2005 Axandra / Voget Selbach Enterprises GmbH

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