Is this forum dead?

[Dez]

Is it just me or is this forum dead?

I'm embarased by the fact that every day I login and the only postings accross all Australian threads are still me?

It's kind of lonley in there folk.

I asked Kel the moderator for a front page Forum thread and got rejected because I didn't have a "Global" search engine, so I'm building one to be able to qualify for that.

But I'm conserned that by being burried some 5 layers deep in this site Australia is simply lost in the noise?

Search Guild for example has Australia right up on the second tier from the front page and as a result there's a lot more international folk willing to click from there "up front" and come talk about Aussie sites and Search Engines.

I hate sounding like a winge wine moan groan kind guy but it's now a couple of weeks since I really saw anything solid or in depth in the "Best Practices Search Engine Forums > Country Specific Search Engines and Directories > UK and Country Specific Search Engines > Australia Search Engines and Directories" thread!

( Yea, that's "Best Practices Search Engine Forums, then click on Country Specific Search Engine Forums, and then click on UK and Country Specific Search Engines and yet again, click on Australian Search Engines and Directories" !! - I think we've been burried and died as a result? )

I'd love someone to come argue with me about it, at least that would mean some engagement?!

Dez

[ihelpyou]

Hi Dez, You gotta pay your dues just like anyone else does.

These forums are kind of high profile, so of course, any and all search engines would want to be on the front page. I should actually start charging a substantial monthly fee for this. Since I don't charge, the only way an engine can make the grade is quality over time. It also 'does' have to be global. Nothing else will suffice.

I could care less about what other forums do., especially the one you mentioned. lol

[qwerty]

What I usually do when I come in here in the morning is go to the front page of the forums and click the "View New Posts Since Last Visit" link, so what I see is a list of threads that have had recent postings, no matter how far from the front page they are.

So if you want more attention paid to the Australia-specific area of the forums, my best advice would be for you to do what Doug did when he first started the forums and didn't have a lot of people posting (before my time, but I've heard the stories): start discussions, check in often, and get things moving. If your thread is one of the most recent ones, people are going to find it, and might just contribute to it.

[Dez]

Originally posted by qwerty
What I usually do when I come in here in the morning is go to the front page of the forums and click the "View New Posts Since Last Visit" link, so what I see is a list of threads that have had recent postings, no matter how far from the front page they are.

So if you want more attention paid to the Australia-specific area of the forums, my best advice would be for you to do what Doug did when he first started the forums and didn't have a lot of people posting (before my time, but I've heard the stories): start discussions, check in often, and get things moving. If your thread is one of the most recent ones, people are going to find it, and might just contribute to it.



Hi,

appreciate your feedback, but have you seen the Australian thread?

I'm all over it like a bad smell ( perhaps thats the issue ) and for whatever reason I don't see anyone responding?

I'd look a bit stupid replying to my own posts just to remain on the top of the "whats new" lists of course.

I'm planning now to only visit here when I get an email notifying me of a new post as I'm sick of coming here and seeing nothing new - I could talk to myself all day at home if I wanted to ( I do of course ).

Cheers,

Dez

[bwelford]

Like qwerty I check in only to the new messages each day when I visit the Forum. So unless, as this morning, you have a message there, I won't get to your corner of the world.

I did go to look at your search engine. The slogan says, "The place to find Australian content ". So it's only if I know I am looking for something coming out of Australia or I intend to visit or to do business in Australia, that I would use your search engine. Presumably in this Forum it's only such people who will get into this discussion.

Back of it all is the much bigger question of relevancy and geography. Since it's never certain whether people will be served regional-biased SERP's or "world" serps, I think the only prudent policy is to assume you've got to be visible in google.com. That is unless you're Bob the Plumber just down the road. He doesn't need much traffic and presumably in this freezing weather in the northern hemisphere he has a phenomenal CTR with all those broken pipes ... :D

[Dez]

Originally posted by bwelford
Like qwerty I check in only to the new messages each day when I visit the Forum. So unless, as this morning, you have a message there, I won't get to your corner of the world.

I did go to look at your search engine. The slogan says, "The place to find Australian content ". So it's only if I know I am looking for something coming out of Australia or I intend to visit or to do business in Australia, that I would use your search engine. Presumably in this Forum it's only such people who will get into this discussion.

Back of it all is the much bigger question of relevancy and geography. Since it's never certain whether people will be served regional-biased SERP's or "world" serps, I think the only prudent policy is to assume you've got to be visible in google.com. That is unless you're Bob the Plumber just down the road. He doesn't need much traffic and presumably in this freezing weather in the northern hemisphere he has a phenomenal CTR with all those broken pipes ... :D


Hi bwelford,

thanks for your reply - great to see some living breathing members * grin *

I was really curious about your comments at the end about "you have to be visible in google.com" - infering that unless you're "Bob the plumber down the road" that my search engine is of no value?

I have to say that this seems to be a very american attitude and really surprising as I'd have expected ( no offence ment please ) that members of a forum like this would be more familiar with internet users and their weird habits.

The more I talk to people of late, the more I am finding that the average internet user is turning away from Google's world domination attitude and more and more they are looking for search tools that provide them with results for "stuff" that is relevant to them and their lives, in particular, searching for example for a plumber, and not getting "1,070,000" results ( just tried it and shees, what a joke! ) for plumbers most of whome are not "around the corner" and hence of no real use to them at all!?

Sure, if you're interested in the average speed of an unladen [european or african] swallow, then Google's your search engine for sure, it's full of such general "stuff".

But if you're a real human and living a life, and not spending 23 hours a day surfing the web looking for a life, then the current trends are saying that you're spending less time on the web, more time off line living, and the little time you spend on the web, you want and need instant high relevance results to stuff that is of use to you, in this case, bob the plumber who's just around the corner if you've got a water leak type problem, or more likely, resturants, bars, cafe's, movie hours, road maps, beach info, weather, tides, etc for your country, state, city, town, suburb etc etc.

I can't say I've ever met a single person who is even remotely interested in searching hand scaned PDF's of American shopping catlogues.

Nor have I met a single person who would bother dialing up the internet, launching a brower, and going to google.com to add 1 + 1 or tally their shopping bill, or divide their rented flat's shared phone bill between flatmates using the Google calculator function.

And I live for the day I find someone who works out how to get Google to find something ( and hey, I write search engines so I know a little about using them ) like a resturant in let's say Mosman, NSW, Australia, in particular, in say Avenue Road, in particular, one that is open till late with an all day breakfast menu, where I can get a double caramel ultra thick shake and french toast with bacon and maple syrup!

But the amount of real life people who search for life style, or real living breathing "stuff" with the likes of WebSearch.COM.AU is exploding, and I'm getting email from all over AU and NZ that country specifc SERP ( I hate that FLA ) for their "local corner of the world".

And I'm sure that will be the case as I roll out the 83 other regional country specific search engines / indexes too.

Ten years of consistent provision of good search support for AU sites has seen WebSearch.COM.AU earn hundreds of thousands of users loyally using it each month, and some 30,000+ dialy new site submissions or updates.

The most disapointing thing of all though has to be that there's an attitude out there that if you're not in google then you're either dead or about to be?

That's so wrong, and I'm amazed you think that.

But **** - I could be completely wrong and perhaps I have a very strange user base and they are all wrong too - stranger things have happened.

But I for one, although I love and envy Google's technolgy and success and wish them the best in their endevour, I'm sick to death of the rapidly global madness that is this "get in google or die" mentallity.

Google's had six months now where their results and technology have repeatedly proven that they can't quite get it togeather - I've had months where CradleTechnologies.COM is #2 for weeks at a time under "Secure Managed Hosting", and then in no time at all, a Google refresh and hey presto, you couldn't find CradleTechnologies.COM under "Secure Managed Hosting" if you had the support of Jehova and Buddah combined!?

That's not smart technolgy, thats just a junk yard of crap - and it seems the bigger they get now, partucularly their constant efforts to break their INDEX size limitations of the 3.3 billion URL mark, the worst their updates and refreses get - CradleTechnologies.COM ( where I live my days as CEO and Chairman ) doesn't do online sales, we do 100% direct campaigns off line by phone, print and in person face to face, so we don't really care about Google screwing up our position.

But if you're hostway.com and you make 100% of your revenue from sales derived from Google and they screw up your position, you can go from winner to looser in no time at all and you will have no idea why or how it either happened or it can be fixed - that's not good business, nor is it good technology or service provision on the part of Google.

Etiher get it right or get out of the search business frankly, sorry, but if you can't provdie the same crawl, index, score, post and rank every time, day in day out, that you update or refresh a web site or URL, then what are you actually doing?

The world's going Google crazy and they are not taking into account the cost of doing so - great business for SEO and SEM's I'm sure, but guess what - web site owners and businesses are not going to keep paying over and over and over just to get into Google when FAST and Inktomi and the new Yahoo engine are all repeatedly proving to be reliable, accurate, and repeatably able to be listed for free, with the same reliable postion being obtainable and maintainable by simply using sensible content and methods.

Thats mature search technology for you, and the sooner Google gets a "klew" as my neighbors kid puts it, the sooner the online web site owner and advertiser community will stop getting ripped off by Google.

Of course if I was into UFO's and Conspiracy theory, I'd have to be forgiven for wondering if it isn't a ploy but Google to pump up their paid listings business in the form of AdWords !?

</rant>

Cheers,

Dez

[Bernard]

I see the Australian threads in the new post lists, but I'm not following them as I have no use for an Australian specific search engine. Perhaps if I lived down under (or targeted a product or service there), I would. For me, its not the location, its the topic.

[ihelpyou]

Yes. If I had a client that needed to be found by Aussie's, then I might be interested in those threads. Since I don't, I won't.

Dez, You need to be Global. NO search engine will ever be listed on the front page of these forums unless they are global with a wide reach to all internet users. It's plain common sense to me.

[bwelford]

Originally posted by Dez
I have to say that this seems to be a very american attitude and really surprising as I'd have expected ( no offence ment please ) that members of a forum like this would be more familiar with internet users and their weird habits.
That's a bit surprising, because I'm Canadian. :D
However the views expressed by Doug and Bernard are right on. What counts is relevant traffic. If some of them happen to use google.com or even google.us or google.co.uk, that's just fine by me.

[Dez]

Originally posted by ihelpyou
Hi Dez, You gotta pay your dues just like anyone else does.

These forums are kind of high profile, so of course, any and all search engines would want to be on the front page. I should actually start charging a substantial monthly fee for this. Since I don't charge, the only way an engine can make the grade is quality over time. It also 'does' have to be global. Nothing else will suffice.

I could care less about what other forums do., especially the one you mentioned. lol


hey ya "ihelpyou",

sure, but I wonder what you consider "paying your dues" exactly.

I can't help but wonder what more is required than some ten years of providing online search support to internet users and web site owners in Australia ( WebSearch.COM.AU ) and sepperately NZ ( WebSearch.CO.NZ )?

Actually, it wasn't so much about WebSearch I was pursuing getting some form of "Front page status" as it were.

Moreso I was hoping you'd get Australian search engines, or even Country Specific engines, out of what is what, five clicks from the from page not including the "iHelpyou Forums link on the home page"?.

Hey, don't get me wrong in that I don't like this site or the forums, indeed I've voiced serious consern that there's been almost no regional activity ouside of what I've posted in Australian threads in ..> Australian Directories and Search Engines" for weeks now..

Sure, wonderful site, great forums, but surely you'd agree that there's something going wrong with not just Country Speficic threads but in particular Australian' threads?

Where is everyone? It's embarasing to see each time I click on the bookmark for Austarlian Directories and Search Engines @ iHelpYou and I keep seeing that I'm the only post on god knows how many threads?

I had to actually stop myself from posting the further threads for fear of being the only name posed to all the AU threads, that would be insanely lame on my part right.

As of "that other forum" - look - a sites a sites a site - there's no such thing as a better or a worse site or forum, other than the fact that "that other forum" as you put it is currently putting a great deal of support behind regional sites and threads.

Sure they've got Google'itis like the rest of the world, something iHelpYou's well and truely guilty of too of course, but there's a good reason for it, they are the current darling of the search world, users and SEO's alike.

But surely there's more to life than Google?

I challenge you and whom ever drives iHelpYou forums to take a good look at what you set out to do in the first place and surely you can't say it was to develop a site where you do nothing but talk about Google and a small handful of three or four search sites almost exclusively to the exclusion of any other site that isn't in the top ten percent of the world's search traffic?

There's a lot surely to be said for something a little more interestling the a ten year old project that's gently, quietly acheived a 1% of world search traffic status with no external investment, a single developer and maintainer / admin ( yea, a one man band as it were ) and that's not just me by the way, there's dozens of small SE's that have great results, but they aren't going to grow any further if professional's like you and the members of this forum, and th many others like it in the search engine SEO/SEM space, unless you get behind them, support them, help them grow.

****, google was a couple of guys who frankly didn't even like each other initially, and some hard case pc's and a Sun Ultra2 sitting on a bench top using some lame pc disks in a more lame lego container ( there's smarter ways to stack disks than build boxes out of lego guys ), and yet, here you are, a couple of years down the track ( yea, they are still really the new kid on the block ) and you're all over them.

And the more you suffer Google'itis, the more they grow and prosper and explode, and so on and so forth.

Take the "I task you to prove your talent and skill as SEO's" challenge and select say two or three regional search engines, invest as little as say 1% of your online campain budgets for yourselves or your clients, and prove you have what it takes to generate traffic regardless of wheither you're surfing the bow wave of so much traffic it's almost impossible to make sense of or a small site doing even just a couple of million unique searches a month - go on - show you've got what it takes.

Take $10 out of the next $1,000 spend with Google, and see if you can get results with the likes of WebSearch.COM.AU, Gigablast, Wombat, Search66, and many others..

That I'd like to see, and see documented and debated and discussed here.

Hell, any idiot can spend money with Google and get brainless results - that's not rocket science, there's endless folk out there getting the same results from free listings, that's not a science.

Get results from a smaller SE where you'll get real humans supporting you with real contact, real emails, with spelling errors thrown in, and a genuine care to earn the measly $10 you bles ss them with, and then you have proven you're good at what you do.

But hey, perhaps it's too hard, who knows, until you try it's just hot air from a guy in Australia pondering as hey types into an empty HTML text field right.

What I'd give to see SEO and SEM professionals give up Google for a month or three and see if they still have what it takes to get real, earned traffic, and not just throw away traffic from a site that doesn't know what to do with it they have so much!

Cheers,

Dez

[Dez]

Originally posted by Bernard
I see the Australian threads in the new post lists, but I'm not following them as I have no use for an Australian specific search engine. Perhaps if I lived down under (or targeted a product or service there), I would. For me, its not the location, its the topic.


What's your target Market then?

Are you saying - if you ran a luggage store in America and wanted to attract local Americans to come buy your nice shiny new bags, that Americans searching for travel info for their next holiday say to Austarlia but who are in your local town and possibly would buy new luggage from your bag shop are of no value to you?

That doesn't make sense?

Target the ad, keyword focus the pants off it and find your local market while it's surfing for stuff it likes and drive it back to where you want it?

How else do you do it?

Google ads seen google regionals or affiliates, by Americans surfing Aussie pages is the same thing, but with minimum use of brain or skill.

Overture geo targeting or key phrase targeting on affiliate sites, again seen by the local buyer surfing new and interesting pages around the world [ yea, there are web pages outside of America by the way ] is just as valid as an ad ampaign on say WebSearch.COM.AU keyword targeted to drive your local buyer right backt o your luggage shop right?

Or did I misunderstand what you said?

I'm pretty sure I didn't though, as your post reads as something along the lines of "if you put an ad in an Australia search engine you're not likely to seel to local Americans" ??

Surely you can see that this isn't right by any means?

Google's adwords traffic is now larger off site than on site to Google.com - so affiliate traffic showing Google ads sending clicks to your site, let's imagine that it wasn an Austrlian site with affiliate traffic, is that any different that working with regional sites used by international web surfers?

I really worry that Google's making SEO's and SEM's lazy and they are just dumping money into Google and sitting back waiting for the clicks to roll in.

Whatever happened to the sharp smarts of SEO's targeting sites around the world where their customers potential users might be and developing smart ways to drive those users back to where your clients want them to buy their nifty new products?

and hey, great to see ya posting in the Australian thread by the way - see - leaving the front page isn't so scary * grin *

Yea, I'm a sassy cheeky bastard some times - but hey, it's gotten you here hasn't it * smile *

Cheers,

Dez

[Farhan]

Dez,
I think everyone pretty much agrees that regional search engines CAN beat the global ones, depending upon the target market and the product type. Your example of ‘luggage bags’ fits the definition just right, but for some other B2B businesses, this may not be applicable.

In Pakistan for instance there's no popular local site that can beat Yahoo or Google for search, hence if you want to target someone here, you gotta to use Google or Yahoo.

I don't have any experience with your site but I once used PPC of Lookle.com when it was launched, and it didn't impress me.

Well anyway, the way you put up your case is creative :)

[Dez]

Originally posted by ihelpyou
Yes. If I had a client that needed to be found by Aussie's, then I might be interested in those threads. Since I don't, I won't.

Dez, You need to be Global. NO search engine will ever be listed on the front page of these forums unless they are global with a wide reach to all internet users. It's plain common sense to me.

Doug,

I don't get it - are you saying that if google australia provided a non-australian user exposure to your ads that it would be of no value to you?

55% of my users are outside of Australia.

The majority of that 55% are from Northern America.

I don't understand the logic?

As for being listed on your front page, I'm not so much interested for my personal site, that's not the point - what I'm curious about is that you're basically dedicated to American search engines?

Google, Yahoo, MSN, Excite, Fast, Inktomi, AOL, Lycos, Go, Ask, Gigablast, Zeal, DMOZ, Altavist.. where's the non-USA search engines / companies?

I mean really, you've got something called "Skaffe Directory" at tier one of your forum, with one post and 93 views, for some kids directory, which I'm sure is neat and fun in it's own right, but then you have fifth tier support for major sites in say UK or AU?

Again, I don't care if you list WebSearch.COM.AU, but I'm really unclear about how "Skaffe Directory " gets top billing, or WebSavy even ( search for "search engine" gets you a whopping 31 results? outstanding! thats a global engine / directory if you ever saw one! ).

I'm starting to sound like I'm bitter and twisted but I'm really not, don't read this as if I am, but I'm darned if I can follow the logic of what makes a site get top billing or not?

For example, LookSmart UK ( or LookSmart.COM for that matter ), albeit not a favourite of mine, and yes, it was started here in Australia, they are a couple of sub-threads under "Best Practices Search Engine Forums > Country Specific Search Engines and Directories > UK and Country Specific Search Engines > United Kingdom Search Engines and Directories>" for goodnes sake?

that's four clicks from the front forum page, and five clicks from your home page?

But LookSmart would make more per hour than the likes of say Skaffe and WebSavy will make in the lifetime of the sites for the next 100 years!!

How does that work?

I'm just curious by the way, I don't expect you to change how you do things, but I'm darned if I can see what the qualification required to get a site like Skaffe or a site like Search66 top or bottom ranking?

Would love to understand of course.

Cheers,

Dez

ps: again, I'm not bitching or winging, I'm just a bloody curious kinda guy!

[ihelpyou]

Dex:
I can't help but wonder what more is required than some ten years of providing online search support to internet users and web site owners in Australia ( WebSearch.COM.AU ) and sepperately NZ ( WebSearch.CO.NZ )?
Well good for you! What does that have to do with being a Global search engine and worthy of great recognition in these forums?
As of "that other forum" - look - a sites a sites a site - there's no such thing as a better or a worse site or forum
Yes, that's your opinion and you are welcome to it. I personally believe if someone wants to learn about "best practices", then they would come here. If they want to learn about "tricks", then they would go to the other place. To each his own.
I challenge you and whom ever drives iHelpYou forums to take a good look at what you set out to do in the first place and surely you can't say it was to develop a site where you do nothing but talk about Google and a small handful of three or four search sites almost exclusively to the exclusion of any other site that isn't in the top ten percent of the world's search traffic?
So you would wish I would put the "cart before the horse?" That ain't gonna happen. I know you realize how many thousands of sites out there would love to be featured on these forums.

[Dez]

Originally posted by Bernard
I see the Australian threads in the new post lists, but I'm not following them as I have no use for an Australian specific search engine. Perhaps if I lived down under (or targeted a product or service there), I would. For me, its not the location, its the topic.


It must be me, I must be stupid.

I don't understand what you mean?

How does a page in North America or a Page in Australia on let's say Numerology differ other than on being on the other side of the planet to the other?

North Americans reading about Numerology for example on a web page written by an Australian say under a www.we-do-numerology-dude.com.au attracting a North Americal reader / web surfter, surely has the same eye ball value to someone looking to sell Numerology Lucky Dice - doesn't it?

Just because it's not lost in the quagmire that is Google doesn't mean it's any more or less valid as content, or more or less valid as a set of eyeballs, surely?

I don't understand?

Surely it's not because it's childs play to just dump all your online spend into AdWords and park it and wait for traffic to come it - is it?

Cheers,

Dez

[ihelpyou]

I just saw your next few posts.

I don't have the time to answer you again. :)

Oh, and btw, you can also see I don't like PPC and never will. They are not on the front page in here even if they are global. And for the record, I don't do ppc of any kind. You keep writing about PPC for some darn reason. :)

[Dez]

Originally posted by bwelford
That's a bit surprising, because I'm Canadian. :D
However the views expressed by Doug and Bernard are right on. What counts is relevant traffic. If some of them happen to use google.com or even google.us or google.co.uk, that's just fine by me.


My previous post applies here then.

What's the difference between a Canadian reading about let's say Lunar Cycles from an Australian science page, or an American science page?

If it's the very same set of eyeballs from Canada, then isn't the exposure value the very same regardless of weither it came from a google or overture affiliate, one of the now zillion 3rd party agregation web sites like sex.com, ePilot, and the like, commision junction even, or WebSearch.COM.AU ??

Either I'm missing something really fundamental, or my original point has been lost?

Cheers,

Dez

ps: plan to visit Canada one day with my family by the way, high on our list of places we must visit ( bet we get coke ads there too - just like in Australia !! )

[ihelpyou]

Yeah, I've lost your point completely and have no clue as to what you are going on about anymore.

[Dez]

Originally posted by ihelpyou
I just saw your next few posts.

I don't have the time to answer you again. :)

Oh, and btw, you can also see I don't like PPC and never will. They are not on the front page in here even if they are global. And for the record, I don't do ppc of any kind. You keep writing about PPC for some darn reason. :)



What's the difference between Pay Per Click on a AdWords at Google or AdCenter at Websearch, or a PayToSubmit at Inktomi or Altavista?

The cost per aquisition is higher perhaps, but it's still technically paying to get included right?


I agree that PPC is a bitch, but we have to pay the bandwidth bill some how.


I get 30,000+ daily new site submissions, not one of them is willing to pay even $9.99 for a 1 hour real time turn around for up to 1,000 pages.

But I get a nice healthy flow of registrations for Pay Per Click "sponsors" daily.


If you don't like Pay Per Click, then explain to me what Google for example are doing at the top of your list? I'm a dummy and don't get the distinction. AdWords is PPC right?


Cheers,

Dez

[Dez]

Originally posted by ihelpyou
Yeah, I've lost your point completely and have no clue as to what you are going on about anymore.

ok.. I'll let it go then..

:-(

[polarmate]

How does a page in North America or a Page in Australia on let's say Numerology differ other than on being on the other side of the planet to the other?

North Americans reading about Numerology for example on a web page written by an Australian say under a www.we-do-numerology-dude.com.au attracting a North Americal reader / web surfter, surely has the same eye ball value to someone looking to sell Numerology Lucky Dice - doesn't it?
Here's our experience with Australia. We sell an entire range of astrology software, of which one suite is made by Australians but we are not allowed to sell their products in Australia. If we do get an Australian order - which is often - we have to refer it back to Australia. Unfortunately for Australians, it is the best software around. I say unfortunately because the authors don't have as much global visibility that we do. Why spend the $$ on SEM when we get no commissions on the order? The other problem about selling to Australians is that they complain about the shipping. It costs as much as it does to ship all the way to Australia from the United States. We don't make our money on shipping and handling. The back and forth negotiation costs us $$. All in all, our outlook is why bother targetting Australia...if we get an order because of our global positioning on SEs, that's fine. And we leave it there ...

[Bernard]

Originally posted by Dez
Are you saying - if you ran a luggage store in America ...

I don't run a luggage store or any B2C business for that matter. My vertical market B2B business involves multiple management levels on the client's part to make a sale. We sell our product and services globally. However, it is not cost effective for us to target our SEO efforts to every regional search engine that exists in every country in the world with potential clients. We have much better results reaching them through trade portals and publications.

Originally posted by Dez
Google ads seen google regionals or affiliates, by Americans surfing Aussie pages is the same thing, but with minimum use of brain or skill.

Wow. Are you hoping to build your business by insulting a huge base of potential customers? Read a bit in the AdWords forum and you will see that not everyone believes there is no intelligence or skill required to manage a successful campaign. IMO, there is a wide disparity in ROI potential across different keywords and industries.

Assuming that AdWords was easy (which I find it to be), why would that be a bad thing? Should marketers be seeking avenues that are taxing and/or labor intensive?

Originally posted by Dez
I'm pretty sure I didn't though, as your post reads as something along the lines of "if you put an ad in an Australia search engine you're not likely to seel to local Americans" ??

My original post was with regards to SEO efforts. I was unaware that you were discussing a PPC engine. That would put the discussion even further off of my personal radar of interest. There are much better outlets available to me to reach my target market.

Originally posted by Dez
Google's adwords traffic is now larger off site than on site to Google.com - so affiliate traffic showing Google ads sending clicks to your site, let's imagine that it wasn an Austrlian site with affiliate traffic, is that any different that working with regional sites used by international web surfers?

Let's talk specifics. Do you know of any PPC engine that has Google's reach, flexibility and ROI? I do not.

Originally posted by Dez
Whatever happened to the sharp smarts of SEO's targeting sites around the world where their customers potential users might be and developing smart ways to drive those users back to where your clients want them to buy their nifty new products?

I think they disappeared with Google's domination of the search market. Is it unreasonable of SEOs to concentrate their efforts where the greatest gains may be found? When Google loses their reach, SEOs will adjust their efforts IMO.

Originally posted by Dez
Take $10 out of the next $1,000 spend with Google, and see if you can get results with the likes of WebSearch.COM.AU, Gigablast, Wombat, Search66, and many others..

That I'd like to see, and see documented and debated and discussed here.

http://www.ihelpyouservices.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10192&perpage=10&pagenumber=1

[Dez]

I was having a bad hair day folks.. any toes stepped on or hair pulled, I humbly appologise for "venting"..

It's all to easy to be sitting in a dimly lit room punching away at hundreds of thousands of lines of code looking for bugs, have the bills pile up and go a little "postal" from time to time from frustration from what I see as a lack of support for non-Google sites.

Am only human after all ( more's the pitty ).

I'll consider myself "told". Who am I to deem what and where is best for your dollars to be spent. I'm an idiot. So be it.

I'm going back to just building the best engine I can as a one man band and if it doesn't cut the mustard, then my loss - it's fun regardless, and it keeps me entertained and there are far worse things to spend your "spare time" doing.

This is my last post to this thread.

Cheers,

Dez

[Kal]

Hi Dez

Sorry if you've found the Aussie thread a bit lonely. I've found that most regional webmasters seem to use the engine-specific threads to post their questions rather than ask about Aussie engines as little traffic comes from them compared to the bigger engines.

Also, I've been a bit busy to moderate and introduce new discussions in the regional forum (or any forum!) lately as I had a baby last week and have been recovering from a c-section.

Not sure what that reference was to me preventing you from posting a front page forum thread? Can you elaborate? :)

[Dez]

Originally posted by Kal
Hi Dez

Sorry if you've found the Aussie thread a bit lonely. I've found that most regional webmasters seem to use the engine-specific threads to post their questions rather than ask about Aussie engines as little traffic comes from them compared to the bigger engines.

Also, I've been a bit busy to moderate and introduce new discussions in the regional forum (or any forum!) lately as I had a baby last week and have been recovering from a c-section.

Not sure what that reference was to me preventing you from posting a front page forum thread? Can you elaborate? :)


Wow!

congratulations on your new bundle of Joy!

we [ my darling wife and best friend ] have a magical little 2.5 year old daughter and are 4.5 months into the cooking of our second, who's due around the 1st of August ( we don't know what it is yet, we like the surprise at the end ).

best wishes in your recovery from the c-section, that's got to be touch.

look, I was having a crappy day when I vented about this AU "forum" being dead, I understand why folk like myself and many others who albeit that we work our brains out building regional search engines to support local country web sites, as you rightly said, on the grand scale to things, we don't really amount to much.

I imagine that if you took 100% of our regional sites combined we'd probably be less than google's daily 200 million in traffic.

Consumer driven markets, that's the new modern way.

I miss the days of old where the local corner store loyalty was alive.

But, have web site must make money, thats the rule.

Perhaps once WebSearch Global [ still searching for a new name - what do you think of SQUITO.COM ?? ] is soft launched we might warrant more financial support from SEO's.

Cheers,

Dez

ps: this really is my last post in this embarasing thread - can you lock it pls * sigh *

[Kal]

Thanks for the congrats. Am happy to be home but very sore and tired :( Originally posted by Dez
ps: this really is my last post in this embarasing thread - can you lock it pls * sigh * No need to lock it. We can all learn something from each other here. You might be interested to know that there are many Aussies and Kiwis in here as regulars. In fact, I'm an Aussie expat living in Christchurch! I'm also an SEO.

We haven't turned our back on regional search engines. It's just that if you look at the stats (e.g. Hitwise or Red Sheriff), the bulk of Australians and New Zealanders use the international search engines (i.e. Google.com) rather than their regional counterparts (i.e. Google.com.au or WebWombat.com.au). So we'd be crazy to spend a lot of time targeting users of regional engines. Sure we submit our sites to the local engines but we spend most of our time sweating over our positions in the major U.S.-based engines because that's where the bulk of our traffic (yes even regional traffic!) comes from.

Also, many of us target an international audience rather than a strictly local one. I have clients in 9 countries, with about 70% of my business coming from the U.S. So much of my time is spent discussing SE's from a broader perspective - that means more time in the generic SE forums and less time in the regional threads. :)