A Look at Ask Jeeves and Teoma - Part 2

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Question: In your FAQ's for Ask Jeeves/Teoma's pay inclusionprogram (http://ask.ineedhits.com/faq.asp), it states that youcan't change URL's.
Why?Jim: "Because it's considered a new submission. We're ...
Question: In your FAQ's for Ask Jeeves/Teoma's pay inclusionprogram (http://ask.ineedhits.com/faq.asp), it states that youcan't change URL's. Why?Jim: "Because it's considered a new submission.
We're not able toput enough resources against it yet."Question: So in the future, we'll have the ability to swap outURLs?Jim: "We'll see, but I hear you. We are aware of Inktomi'sprogram."Question: What's the difference in traffic between the premiumlistings and the "regular" search results?Jim: "Do you mean between Premier Listings (Featured Sponsor) andPaid Inclusion? There are two differences: 1) You are guaranteedthat your listing will show up; 2) You are guaranteed that itwill show up in a specific location on our page."Question: Are Premier Listings twice as likely to be clicked on,for example?Jim: "Premier Listing is really just an ad.
With Paid Inclusion,you aren't paying for anything other than being included in theindex and then being subjected to the same relevance algorithmsthat give us our other results, but with the other benefits thatI mentioned earlier."In terms of click ratio, I suppose it depends on how relevantyour site is to a given query. The match rate of a site that buysad space on our site is much more significant than one thatpurchases via paid inclusion for now."For more information about Premier Listings, visit:http://static.wc.ask.com/docs/advertise/premier.html.Question: Let's say that I have a Web site:http://myownwebsite.com, and let's say that my goal is for it tobecome an "authoritative" site in Teoma.
Could you give us sometips on what we can do to try to be considered by Teoma as anauthoritative or expert site on a particular subject?Jim: "Our recommendations are as follows: 1) you allow people tolink to you; 2) you offer quality content so that you becomepopular among other sites of the same subject (i.e., experts).Basically, that's it. None of our expert sites or authorities aremanually decided.
It's based on our algorithms."Question: On Teoma, are Teoma and Ask Jeeves results combined?Jim: "Well, there really is no such thing as an Ask Jeevesresult. There are pre-fab, editorially selected `answers' tocertain queries that may appear at the top of the page if we havea high level of confidence that we have the right answer.
But asfar as the actual search results go, it's all Teoma...and we'lllayer in the Direct Hit click-pop at some point soon."Question: But Teoma results ARE being shown at Ask Jeeves?Jim: "That's exactly right. The part of the AJ page that says,`You may find these search results helpful' has the Teomaresults.
They were launched in January (and by no coincidence, weimmediately saw a 30% increase in picks to those results.)"Question: The "Featured Sponsor" section of Ask Jeeves, is thatthe Premier Listings?Jim: "Yes it is."(End of interview/chat session)Let's take a longer look at TeomaIf you haven't visited Teoma yet and performed a few searches,you need to do so (http://www.teoma.com/). It's a really coolengine with some very interesting and helpful features.For example, it's a no-nonsense engine like Google with onepurpose only: search.When you search at Teoma, you're given three sets of results:* Results, which are relevant Web pages from the Teoma index;* Refine, which are suggestions for narrowing your search;* Resources, which are link collections from experts andenthusiasts.So with Teoma, if your search results are too broad, you canimmediately narrow them down by choosing one of the suggestionsin the Refine section.And, in the Resources area, you'll find "experts" in thatparticular focus area.
This is an excellent place to find relatedand important sites that might be good candidates to contactabout swapping links.More on Ask JeevesAsk Jeeves is the "question answering" search engine, which putsit into a class of its own. (http://www.askjeeves.com)At the top of the search results, you'll see a "featured sponsor"section, which is their Premier Listing advertisement that we'vediscussed previously.With some searches, you'll see a "sponsored links" section, whichare results currently being provided by Overture.
However, onSeptember 3, Ask Jeeves will be switching to Google for theirpaid listings.Then, you'll find search results from Teoma, followed by asection called, "Other people with your search have also asked:"In that section, you'll see additional questions that may helpanswer your initial question, with results coming from Ask.com.Like at Teoma, you can narrow your search down by choosing one ofthe search terms on the right-hand side of the page.Ask Jeeves recently entered into an agreement with Google todisplay their Google AdWords in Ask Jeeves results effectiveSeptember 3, 2002. Those results will be shown at both Ask Jeevesand Teoma as "sponsored links." For more information, visit:http://www.nytimes.com/aponline echnology/AP-Ask-Jeeves-Google.htmlIn ConclusionTeoma has taken over the old Direct Hit site, and I believe we'llsee some big things out of this fascinating engine in the future.Ask Jeeves is as it's always been: unique - a place where you cango and ask a question and be presented with several possibleanswers.If you haven't submitted your site to Ask Jeeves/Teoma, and ifyour site isn't found in the Teoma index, I strongly suggest thatyou consider their pay inclusion program and become a part oftheir index.
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