Ask has just gone right down in my ratings. In December the ask bot started to add a space (%20) at the end of every url it crawled, including the domain root. Needless to say, it got a 404 response. I think I have the server set up now to do a 301 redirect for the ask bot. I just hope I have done so before my sites completely disappear out of ask.
I have always optimised for Yahoo and MSN. About a year ago I did an experiment with playing Google's
PR algorithm game. Traffic went up, but I never saw an increase in income.
The only search engine that does have a marked effect on my income is Yahoo. Over the last couple of years, every time Yahoo 'lost' my sites, the income went down. Even so, with only MSN sending traffic the income was still more than I would have expected if Yahoo and MSN brought the same revenue per visitor.
While I like Yahoo most for sending visitors, I suspect that MSN gives most revenue.
If I
am doing research, then I only use live.com. Top results are always relevant and never spammy.
If I want to find out about something that happened in the last 48 hours, only then will I use Google.
I used to use Yahoo for all my searches; now it is my second choice if I can't find what I
am looking for.
If you are looking for a search that puts emphasis on relevance, then ScrubTheWeb.com is the best available. Only pages that are submitted are included in the index, so results can be hit and miss. It is worth submitting pages as ScrubTheWeb is used as a source for many smaller engines.
