Yahoo owns and operates Inktomi to provide search results within it's own site, however Yahoo also licenses Inktomi for use by other sites, such as MSN. However, until very recently, up to 80% of the results Yahoo displayed would come from Google. Because of this, consultants in the SEO market focused on google. This trend is soon to change, as Yahoo has announced recently, that it will soon use it's own engine, Inktomi, for results on all of it's sites. This should knock down google's dominance of the market from an estimated 80% to a projected 50%.  For SEO consultants to stay on top of the game, they will soon have to start considering Inktomi as a major player in the game, once again. 

Inktomi, commonly referred to as "slurp" in the industry, is different from Google-Bot in many ways, however one of the biggest is unlike google, having your main site indexed does not mean that your whole site will be indexed. It is good to remember, Inktomi is mostly a paid-inclusion engine, an average sized site of 50 pages could cost up to $1300 per year to have each page added to the Pay-for-Inclusion database, however, this does not mean that you will have to pay to be indexed, it only means that it is more likely you will be indexed, and you will be revisited more often.

As with most spiders, the best way to get listed by Inktomi is to let Inktomi find you when it spiders through the web. Of course, if you only have a few links to your site, while chances are Inktomi will eventually find you, the better your link popularity is, the better chance of Inktomi finding your site. One of the best ways to increase your link popularity is to be listed with major sites.  Directories, such as Yahoo, or DMOZ are great ways for any site to be found quickly. There is also many industry-specifc sites you should be listed on, for example, if you are a software developer who offers a free demo of your product, having a link to your site on Download.com can both greatly increase the traffic to your site, as well as increase the chance of Inktomi finding your site soon.

One of the most important aspects of any site is content. Sites with good content and good use of keywords are a must with Inktomi. Inktomi, like most spiders, has certain words it will skip, and other words it will treat as a stop word. For instance, Inktomi skips popular words such as "web", hence it will read "top web hosting" as "top hosting". Unlike google, Inktomi gives extra points for proper meta tag usage, this includes both description and keywords.

Inktomi revisits non-paid sites on average once every ten days, with the maximum being two to three weeks. Because of this, pages can be removed from the listing if they are often unavailable. However, sites can also be marked to be revisited even more frequently if they are popular, or changed often.

Inktomi is known to ban sites for violations such as text to small to read, or invisible text or graphics, keyword stuffing in either the meta fields or html body, or submitting multiple pages of the same content. Inktomi also employs a human editorial staff which randomly reviews sites for content and other violations which may not be picked up automatically.

Inktomi also offers a Pay-for-Inclusion program, as of September 2002 it does not offer a free method to submit your site. Inktomi offers two different methods of submitting your site to their index. The first method, intended for smaller sites, is a flat fee per page. Each page you submit will be added to the index within 3-5 business days, and checked every 2 days thereafter. This option is referred to as "Search Submit". The second option, commonly referred to as "Index Submit" is marketed to larger sites. Instead of being flat fee per page, this option is a CPC (Cost per Click) option.

It is good to remember, that Pay-for-Inclusion programs do not guarantee you will be put into their index. Because of this, you are possibly paying for nothing, in which it is very important to ensure your site meets the requirements before submitting. Pay for Inclusion only guarantees your site will be checked quicker, and more often.