[Sigia-l] "Best Bets" the Yahoo way

[Lyle_Kantrovich at cargill.com]

Christina,

Well said.  No flames here, but I will point out that you forgot to 
mention that you work for Yahoo...but a lot of us "here" already know 
that.

Pay for inclusion doesn't bother me.  Requiring payment for inclusion 
irritates me both as a user and a site owner.  E.g. when Yahoo decided 
you had to pay to be in the directory.  If my memory serves, they 
"grandfathered in" everyone already there and required new sites to pay. 
 Requiring payment to get added at all would, over time, reduce the 
quality of a directory or index...since you're in a way forcing a large 
number of potentially good sites to become part of the "dark web."  
Those sites that can't pay or who don't for some reason (e.g. lack of 
time, sponsorship, etc.).  Think of what the white pages would be like 
if you had to pay to be included.

Yahoo's pay for inclusion plan sounds good - basically everyone can be 
included (if the Y! spider finds you), but if you pay, you may get added 
faster and indexed more often.  Sounds okay to me.  Buyers actually get 
something for their $$, searchers still get good results (must), and Y! 
actually get revenue and stays in biz so people can search and sites can 
be found...glorious.

Free markets are great things - I'm glad to see Google get some 
competition.  I'm a die-hard Googler and have been converting the 
unwashed masses since Google was in beta.  If Yahoo builds a better 
mouse-trap, then they'll get me on their extended sales team -- for 
free.  Competition will also keep Google on their toes - they're not 
sitting still either.  This is going to be better than the "rumble in 
the jungle."

Thanks for correcting the bad subject thing - I noticed that too.  Best 
bets are a great pattern (IMHO) that more site searches should use. 

Again, take that flameproof suit off girl!  You deserve some "props" for 
helping Yahoo keep search competitive.  You done us IAs and UX types 
proud.

Lyle

----
Lyle Kantrovich
User Experience Architect
Cargill 

Croc O' Lyle - Personal Commentary on usability, information 
architecture and design.
http://crocolyle.blogspot.com/

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." 
	- Leonardo da Vinci
 

-----Original Message-----
From: cwodtke at eleganthack.com [mailto:cwodtke at eleganthack.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2004 8:59 AM
To: sigia-l at asis.org
Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] "Best Bets" the Yahoo way


Yahoo has always had people to pay to be included in the directory, but 
it
has never been the only way to be included. Inktomi has always offered 
folks
to pay to be indexed, but is not the only way to be indexed. Both of 
them
are just ways to guarantee you get included in a timely manner.

there are two core concepts in web search: pay for placement and pay for
inclusion.

pay for placement are those adsense and the overture ads you seen on the 
top
and right of your "real" results. On a given query then can be more 
useful
than the results, on others they are merely in the way.

pay for inclusion means you pony up for the crawler to be pointed you 
way.
this is extremely useful for a brand new website that has no there way 
to be
found, since it is too new to be linked to yet. Yahoo does not let paid
inclusion affect the algorithm, though there has been conversations that 
it
might actually improve relevancy, since a paying company *might* be a 
more
authoritative source. Liek all elements of their algorithm, Yahoo relies 
on
strict blind testing to determine relevancy.

<snip>

BTW, this is a disingenuous title-- a best bet is when someone has done 
a
query analysis and has crafted the first few results to be the "best" 
ones.
You could stretch it to include for PFP, but not PFI. You could make a 
case
that the "Inside Yahoo!" sections are best bets.
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=define+disingenuous&sp=1&ei=UTF-8&n=20&fl=0&fr=slv2-
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=94306+chinese+food&ei=UTF-8&fr=slv2-&n=20&fl=0&x=wrt
http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=slv2-&ei=UTF-8&p=701+first+ave+sunnyvale+ca
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=david+bowie&ei=UTF-8&fr=slv2-&n=20&fl=0&x=wrt

Okay, now I'm donning my flameproof suit.