Inktomi Developments

• Aug. 22, 2000

Inktomi's Inconsistency

There has been a recent backlash against the Inktomi Corp. in the Search Engine Positioning community. Inktomi has many important partners in the internet business world, most important to us being the search engines for which Inktomi provides search results. These include MSN, Hotbot, Canada.com, Anzwers, and AOL among others. Until recently, results from Inktomi-powered searches have been very reliable compared to many other popular search tools; however, many are beginning to lose faith in Inktomi due to recent developments at the company, including the end of the partnership between Inktomi and Yahoo (click here), the inconsistency of the Inktomi database in mid-July (click here), and most recently, the announcement of a paid-submission program in conjunction with Network Solutions (click here).

The New Service

Very few details have surfaced about this new paid submission service. The service will be available to websites with domain names registered through Network Solutions (NSI); the idea is that, for a fee, domains registered through NSI will be ensured fast inclusion to the Inktomi database, and will be re-indexed every 48 hours. According to Jim Rutt of Network Solutions: "NSI is removing the number one obstacle for many new Web site owners -- getting listed in search engines so their customers can find them". At present the service is available only to sites registered though Network Solutions, but it is possible that Inktomi will eventually offer similar programs with some of its other partners. It is not yet known what the cost of the service will be. 

Will it be useful?

This service could be quite promising if Inktomi can guarantee that many internet users will be using its search service. The problem is that Inktomi seems to be losing its presence in some of the engines where it had been most prominent. As mentioned earlier, Inktomi lost its partnership with Yahoo (to Google) earlier this summer. Changes are also visible in the relationship between Hotbot and Inktomi. Hotbot has always been a good yard-stick by which to measure the Inktomi database; a Hotbot search supposedly pulls its top 10 results from Direct Hit, the following 10 from Open Directory (if the keyword is found in an Open Directory category), and the remaining results from Inktomi . In the past week, a shakeup in the Top 10 is showing Open Directory results mixed in with Direct Hit results, and very little presence of Inktomi pages. A search on Canada.com or Hotbot for the any domain name previously indexed in Inktomi may still show several pages still in the index, but with rankings shuffled around. 

We are researching this matter through our own observation of Inktomi and through surveying newsgroups and discussion groups on the topic. It is likely that this shakeup at Inktomi is only temporary: one would assume that they would like to present the most stable, reliable database possible to make the new partnership with Network Solutions as attractive a product as possible. Thus the situation should improve. We will be updating regularly as there is new information to report on this topic. 

For more information see the following articles:

Inktomi
Inktomi's Partners
Official Press Release

Jason Lane
jason@searchengineposition.com

Darren Downey
darren@searchengineposition.com