The New MSN Directory Optimization Scheme

[Mel]

Ok Guys and Gals -

Time to bite the bullet and start reoptimizing for MSN directory (read Look$mart, pronounced Look- Dollars-mart).

Here is my first attempt at how to optimize for the directory:

1. Provide your credit card details to L$ (you're going to be using it a lot).
2. Buy new L$ relevancy words ($39 for three)
4. Buy new L$ Categories ( $49 each)
5. Change title and description ($???)
6. Check your results in MSN
7. Depending on your ranking proceed as follows:
if you have a good ranking on a competitive keyword proceed on to step 8. If not go back to step 1.
8. Top up your credit card.

Seems to me like we are going to have to change our acronym from SEO to $EO

[ihelpyou]

4. Buy new L$ Categories ( $49 each)
I think that would be at $199 each as they will require the so-called 'deposit' as well. The money is used to give you clicks. Upfront fee is $199.

I agree with you. Seems to me that to get a measly 2000 clicks a month, you would have to cough up $300 a month or $36,000 per year.

Gee, I know many small business web sites that will happily fork out that money per month......... NOT!!!!!!

Now, how many believe that the search results on Looksmart, MSN, and partners are going to reveal the best and most relevant sites for the search term?

Now, how many believe that many small, very unique, niched, high-quality sites with very good free content, and LOTS of it, are going to be left out of the search results on Looksmart, MSN, and many partners??

The (Internet) does not really realize it now, but (they) are successfully stifling the growth of their very existence since any and all small mom and pop businesses who wish to start up on the net right now, will not be able to do so with such a large allotment of cash needed.

The very web sites who MADE the internet what it is are being squeezed out.

"Thanks to all you small biz suckers. We appreciate you growing this big billboard for us, but now we simply don't need you anymore. To-Ta-Lou to you. Nice knowing ya."

[Advisor]

Doesn't matter to MSN. They have an audience who will use them to search because they have no idea they can go anywhere else. Look$mart and MSN are simply exploiting this to the fullest extent. I guess L$ didn't make enough money redirecting Web site traffic through that scumware program, so they had to find some other way to screw Webmasters.

Of course, we'll have to wait and see what they announce for sure. Wonder why they haven't sent the email yet...

Jill

[ihelpyou]

Because they are hearing it anyway in a big way. An email confirming things would only fuel the fire. Besides, they do not wish to tell sites that their traffic no longer exists unless they cough up a few hundred every month when the site thought they already paid them to be in the directory.

[Advisor]

I'm sure they are hearing it! Hopefully, they're trying to think of a good way to not totally alienate those that already paid their one-time fee to be listed, but just haven't come up with a good plan yet.

Unfortunately, I don't think there's much anyone can do about this and they know it. The only thing to do would be to boycott LS, but there will always be those that don't boycott. If it does turn out that they totally screw all of us who paid a $299 one-time fee, I know that I sure will give them as much BAD press as I can. Hopefully others will also. Still, I don't think they will care as long as they make money.

J

[Mel]

Not only that but if the free clicks run out in the first two weeks or so and you don't top up then I guess they don't serve your site in the results, so the MSN SERPS will be changing all the time.

Very fair minded of them I must say.

[Mel]

$300 a month or $36,000 per year ?????????? Check Your decimal point Doug.

[MsSearch]

So math isn't Doug's strongest subject :p.....$3600/yr...

How does this compare to Overture? Why shell out this kinda money when you can bid on keywords at Overture and be assured a higher spot on MSN?

[Advisor]

So, math wizards...what percentage increase is $3600 from the old $299. Of course, you can't even compare because the $299 was a one time fee. But let's just pretend it was yearly for a moment...

J

[ihelpyou]

LOL.

3600 sounds better but the 300 a month sounds bad.

Oh yes, why do the L$ thing indeed! Overture results are very much on top on MSN. Besides, Overdollars' minimum is only .05. That extra .10 a click for L$ is a bunch of monies.

[ihelpyou]

It looks like a little over an 830% increase, right?

Of course, I could be very wrong. :D

[Great-1]

Originally posted by Advisor
So, math wizards...what percentage increase is $3600 from the old $299.
J


About a 1200% increase (I think).

An 8 times increase would be $2400 (again, I think)

[Advisor]

LOL...anyone who knows how to figure this out for sure, or do I have to email my husband? :rolleyes:
I know there are some tricks to figuring that sort of thing out, but I can't remember what they are! Definitely not my forte.

J

[ihelpyou]

I just used:

$299 divided by $3600 and you get .08305

[Great-1]

I just figured that $3600/$300 = 12

Therefore, it's a 1200% increase. How the hell did I get an A* for my Maths GCSE?????

[Mel]

LOL short answer if you have to figure it out you can't afford it!

[MsSearch]

by Great-1 About a 1200% increase (I think).

thats what i figured it out to be also...and i used to be a whiz at math...

[Great-1]

ah ha - Great minds think a like. Sadly, so do bad ones :)

[Advisor]

I think there's a step missing from there, but I'm not positive. Someone call Alan in here!

J

[Alan Perkins]

You called Mum?

This time :D the Great-1 is correct. Assuming all assumptions are correct, it is approx. 1200%.

Not sure where you're getting your prices from though.

[Great-1]

Originally posted by Alan Perkins
[B]This time :D the Great-1 is correct. [B]

Woo hoo - oh yeah, oh yeah (does stupid dance)

[Advisor]

Looking at the prices myself, it would be minimally, $49 + $150 = $199

So in that respect, it's less than their usual $299. Your $150 goes towards clicks, and you have to minimally pay $15/month whether or not you get clicks. Let's see, $15 x 12 months = 180. So for the first year, minimally, you're actually looking at $229. $15 per month will get you 100 clicks per month (if my calculations are correct...$15/$.15)

So for some sites, 1st year costs will be $229.00 and 2nd year costs will be $180.00.

Your clicks may vary. But I still want to know what happened to the $299 I just gave them?

Jill

[ihelpyou]

You have to add on 150 dollars for the first year costs for a new listing. All is fine after that.

So, first year costs are 229 + 150 = $379 at the minimum.

This is assuming you only put in $15 a month and get 100 clicks a month.

oh, actually your first month's clicks are already in there with the 150, so your first year's costs would be:

379 - 15 = $364 at the minimum.

Ain't it amazing how L$ has successfully raised the new listing fee by $65 per new site? LOL

[Advisor]

Doug, where are your numbers coming from, that makes no sense to me. My numbers had the $150. It is $49 plus $150. The .15 cents per click comes out of the $150. But they'll add up to $180 minimally at $15 per month.

So it's $229 for the first year. Don't know what your numbers mean!

J

[ihelpyou]

oh, 150 is 1000 clicks. my bad.

hmm. Hard to pinpoint it as each site will use up 1000 clicks differently.

[Advisor]

Yeah, I really have no clue as to how far 1000 clicks will go for most of my clients. I'm sure it will vary. I think for most it will be enough, but it ***** because the better you optimize, the more clicks, and the more money. I guess that's what they're shooting for, which makes a bit of sense if you think about it.

They're dead meat in my Advisor today...look for it in an inbox near you in a few hours!

Jill

[Mel]

Should we perhaps start a math thread?

$15/.15 =100. Where is this 1000 clicks per month coming from ?

So rather than asking if 1000 clicks per month is adequate, you need to be asking is 100 clicks per month adequate, which is a totally different kettel of stinking fish.

BTW Jill - great article on this situation, but my concerns are if the MSN SERPs are going to be different at different times of the month as different people run out of clicks. I could care less about searching at Look$mart, 100 clicks per month would be just fine there.

[Advisor]

You're right...100...that's what I said originally, wasn't it. Oh gawd, I hope i didn't say it wrong in my newsletter. I purposely used my calculator!

J

[Mel]

No Problem Jill - You got it right in the Advisor!

[Advisor]

Yeah, I checked right after...you had me scared there a minute. I figured my proofreader would have caught it, but I'm not sure how her math skills are!

J

[TravelNow]

There is an additional issue with all of this that Zeal throws in-

Once you have paid for a listing, a zealot cannot add your pages to Zeal. This effectively means that once you pay for one page, you lose the oportunity to get anything in for free.

Previously, I receommended that most affilaites bit the bullet and pay for a listing because the most important pages were the commercial pages.

Now, I'm leaning towards telling many it isn't worth it. They should create noncommercial content and play the Zeal ticket for more pages- higher relevancy in Google, more overall traffic that can get to site and eventually a better, more solid base of free traffic than this new scheme which seems to do little more than annoy most of us.

:nerd:

[ihelpyou]

hmm. Now I am confused??

Did you read that somewhere TravelNow?

[Advisor]

Yeah, that doesn't sound quite right to me either. I'd be interested in seeing where you read that.

Jill

[TravelNow]

I didn't read it anywhere- but it is a pretty educated guess based on the following-
I have repeatedly tried to enter different websites as a zealot only to be hit with an error that says "Sorry, URLs from this domain cannot be added by zealots" or something to that effect.

The few times that I have inquired as to a reason- I was told that it is because they are commercial clients. I have had this happen with both large sites, and at least two smaller commercial sites that only paid to have their front page entered but have lots of content pages inside that would qualify as noncommercial.

I did have two pages that I submitted to the editors at Zeal (Looksmart) entered after writing up a defense of those pages. However, I and most Zealots are not generally going to work past the "sorry..." page.

If you know of a paid site and are a zealot, I'd encourage you to try to duplicate my results.

[ihelpyou]

If that is the case, all sites in L$ prior are litterally SCREWED if they are a small business.

[TravelNow]

If anyone here has a site that has paid for a listing and has a page that would fir in Zeal- I'd be happy to try a submission for you if you would like to pm the info to me.

I did waffle before posting this, because I don't want Looksmart to take away the Zeal entry- but I see paid listing as a real barrier to Zeal is it is right now unless I have just had a run of conincidences and bad advice from Editors.

[ihelpyou]

Thanks for the offer Travel!

The front page in here was paid for. The other 2 pages in Zeal were not paid for. I would be worried that Zeal would take out my pages from the forums that are not paid for. Eventhough the forums are non-commercial, I did pay for the front page and now am probably screwed because of it.

[TravelNow]

Just from taking a look- it appears the ones you have in there right now are because they were listed by a looksmart editor- not a zealot.

I don't think you need to worry about those dropping- just about getting in any new pages that you mayy want to see in

[ihelpyou]

Yes. Two of the pages were added by an editor. The front page was submitted through Looksmart and then added to zeal later.