InfoSeek/Go Network

Please note these are only a few examples of what is considered spamming. There are many more types that are not illustrated and will not be permitted on Infoseek's index. Any violation may result in the removal and/or exclusion from Infoseek's index. In addition to these html restrictions, Infoseek says further (ref here);

• At this time, Infoseek is not indexing web pages from certain domains through the Add-URL feature. Some larger web domains are affected by this restriction. We have taken this action because of continued attempts to subvert our index. We recognize that everyone does not use such practices. However, the frequency of abuse requires us to impose it. We apologize for the inconvenience to those inadvertently affected by this policy. Our intent is to insure the highest quality of search results for our users. We will accept submissions from certain domains via e-mail to www-request@infoseek.com.
• A single URL may only be submitted once in a 24-hour period via the Add-URL feature.
• Infoseek reserves the right to restrict automated or robotic submissions through the Add-URL feature.
• Web sites that employ practices such as trapping or serving unsolicited files to user systems may be excluded from the index.

The html restrictions are fairly Industry standard. But some of the other restrictions are curious and have given rise to several rumors. We've checked some of the more popular free web space servers (geocities.com, angelfire.com, tripod.com etc) and most seem to be adequately represented within the index. It should be noted that we defined "adequate representation" as the index containing 10,000 or more sites located on those domains. Geocities had more than 200,000 matches to our query, angelfire had more than 12,000 and tripod.com more than 11,000. The one surprise was hypermart.com (only 23 matches found), which was not adequately represented within the index. Is hypermart.com a banned domain? Only InfoSeek knows for sure. Unfortunately this leads us to law #2 of Search Engines.

Second Law of Search Engines: Free web space servers may not be as acceptable to the search engines as ISP based sites or hosted domains.

Note the operative phrase here is "may not be".

The restrictions for automated submission systems is a growing trend, not only for InfoSeek, but also for many other search engines. Adding to that, their own manual submission will only allow you to submit the same url once per 24 hour period. This doesn't mean much realistically, but you should be sure your site is ready before you submit.

The InfoSeek submission system is routinely taken offline for maintenance. For example, at the time of this file creation, the submission system was down (although it was online earlier today).

InfoSeek indexes all the visible text, plus provides support for ALT tag text in image statements, Meta Keywords and Description tags. InfoSeek does not read HTML comments.

Use a highly descriptive title, include a META tag description, and create META tag keywords that contain comma-separated phrases. Use an assortment of synonyms that accurately describe your site, but don't try to boost the site's relevance by repeating keywords. The overuse and repetition of keywords may result in a lower relevancy score and possible omission from Infoseek's index.

However, experience has shown that InfoSeek is factoring in other elements to help them determine ranking. These are;

• Site Popularity.
• Meta Tags.
• Meta Tag relevancy.
• Reviewed Status.

InfoSeek uses two standards of measure for meta tags. First your site earns a boost for just having them, then they also earn another boost if the information contained within the tags is relevant to your visible page content.

Finally with the merger of InfoSeek into the Go Network, they have added a directory system in which all entries are reviewed manually before entry into the directory. Part of this review process includes tagging the site within the index so that it will appear higher than a similarily designed site that hasn't been reviewed.

The listing below shows a typical entry from a site using meta tags.

Northern Webs - North Idaho's Premier Web Design Studio
Northern Webs, North Idaho's most experienced Web Design studio.
100%  Date: 8 Dec 1998,  Size 7.3K,  http://www.northernwebs.com/ 
Find similar pages

And this entry from a site without meta tags. Notice how the lack of an adequate description tag leads to a strange reading summary? Infoseek will utilize the first 200 or characters of visible text as the page summary should you omit your Meta description tag.

INAC World Wide Web Site
and and and & If you would like to contact a departmental representative, please see our page. If you have any questions about the department or comments about this site, please contact Pierre Beaudreau, ...
71%  Date: 27 Nov 1998,  Size 8.4K,  http://www.inac.gc.ca/index_e.html 

There is one additional item to note here. Should you omit your title tag, InfoSeek will use the url as the title for the entry.

InfoSeek offers you a way to check the status of your submission. Or if you prefer, you can check it from here, be warned however, should the submission system be down for maintenance, you will not be able to check your submission status.

Check the Status of a URL Submission