L$ Reponse to Existing Customers

[Kal]

Here it is, Looksmart's ridiculous announcement to existing customers:

------------
This is an official communication about your LookSmart listings.
Please be sure you read and understand the message below.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Dear Valued Customer:

LookSmart has launched Small Business Listings, our first pay-per-click product for small businesses. This new, improved product replaces both Submit and Site Promote. Full details are available at http://listings.looksmart.com.

Because you were an active Site Promote customer as of April 9, 2002, we've automatically upgraded you to Small Business Listings.
Your account has already been updated and is ready for you to log in.
We've waived the $49 per listing set-up fee.
We'll give you $300 in free clicks per listing. Each month for the next 20 months you'll receive a $15 credit per listing in your account – starting today. There's nothing you need to do. You're already set to receive this offer.

Your regular monthly Site Promote payments will continue and will be applied to your monthly account budget – along with your free clicks. Your initial monthly account budget will be $___ ($__ paid clicks + $__ free clicks). Your Site Promote keywords will be used as Small Business Listings relevancy keywords.

Note: Your monthly account budget is shared by all listings in your account. To apply a specific budget to an individual listing, you may set a click limit for that listing. Log in to your account to learn more.

More about Small Business Listings
Small Business Listings introduces pay-per-click pricing for cost-effective customer acquisition.
$49 per listing set-up fee.
$0.15 cost-per-click (CPC) – flat rate, no auctions.
You control your monthly spend based on your budget.

Small Business Listings gives you more of what you're looking for – more traffic, better targeting, easier management.
Get even more qualified leads by appearing in Featured Listings, the top tier of search results on LookSmart.com, Juno, and many other partners. Of course, you'll continue to be distributed on MSN, AltaVista, Netscape, Prodigy, CNN.com and over 300 ISPs.
Select 10 keywords or phrases at no extra cost.
Set up your listing once and let it manage itself. No need to monitor bids or placements.

We're excited to offer you this new product. We know you'll find Small Business Listings to be a great marketing investment for your business.

Sincerely,
The LookListings Small Business Team

P.S. If you have additional questions about how Small Business Listings affects your current listings, log in to your account and visit our FAQ for current customers.
---------------

They might be excited, but I'm confused and angry! Their new nickname is "LookI'mNotSoSmart"

[Kal]

The above email was sent to Site Promote customers. The email below was sent to Express Submit customers:

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This is an official communication about your LookSmart listing.
Read this message to understand how to get your $300 in free clicks.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Valued Customer:

LookSmart has launched Small Business Listings, our first pay-per-click product for small businesses. This new, improved product replaces both Submit and Site Promote. Full details are available at http://listings.looksmart.com.

Because you're a valued customer who submitted a listing before April 9, 2002, we've automatically upgraded you to Small Business Listings.
Your account has already been updated and is ready for you to log in.
We've waived the $49 set-up fee.
We'll give you $300 in free clicks. Each month for the next 20 months you'll receive a $15 credit in your account – starting today.

To receive your $300 in free clicks, you must activate your new LookSmart account before July 11, 2002. Log in to your account to get started. Activation is completely free – and once you activate you can cancel anytime. Activate today and get a bonus coupon. (Details below.)

More about Small Business Listings
Small Business Listings introduces pay-per-click pricing for cost-effective customer acquisition.
$49 per listing set-up fee.
$0.15 cost-per-click (CPC) – flat rate, no auctions.
You control your monthly spend based on your budget.

Small Business Listings gives you more of what you're looking for – more traffic, better targeting, easier management.
Get even more qualified leads by appearing in Featured Listings, the top tier of search results on LookSmart.com, Juno, and many other partners. Of course, you'll continue to be distributed on MSN, AltaVista, Netscape, Prodigy, CNN.com and over 300 ISPs.
Select 10 keywords or phrases at no extra cost.
Set up your listing once and let it manage itself. No need to monitor bids or placements.

We're excited to offer you this new product. We know you'll find Small Business Listings to be a great marketing investment for your business.

Sincerely,
The LookListings Small Business Team

P.S. If you have additional questions about how Small Business Listings affects your current listing, log in to your account and visit our FAQ for current customers.

-----------------------

They can stick their "bonus coupon" up their LookSmartA$$es :mad:

[Kal]

Ok - this is weird. I've read and re-read the emails from LS, I've read their FAQ and their new listing guidelines and I am more confused than ever before (how they expect non search engine savvy customers to understand this I'll never know!).

<edit>I kinda ranted here before it sunk in so I've removed it</edit>
A couple of the sites belong to clients from way back that I no longer deal with, but I don't know whether to "cancel" these listings as the clients paid good money at the time to be listed and they will be removed if I cancel and will have to pay $49 to be reinstated plus the PPC fees. But I don't want to be charged for click thrus for these old listings as they are not current clients.

Boy, I could really do without this type of hassle at the moment. How are the rest of you dealing with this for your clients?

[ihelpyou]

I have no earthly clue how to deal with it.

[MakeMeTop]

I just don't understand :(

Are we paying per click on MSN or not? Nothing I've read anywhere answers this very simple (and pretty important) question.

Or is this just a different way to get an annual fee for your MSN listings plus some additional revenue for LookSmart by having PPC listings appearing on their other partners - as they did previously with their $29.95 per month deal :confused:

[ihelpyou]

I am assuming this includes MSN but you are right, no explanation. They did exclude MSN before so who knows?

[Mel]

Thanks a bunch Look$mart we paid you for a listing in perpetutity and you are now going to do us a favor and let us have 100 free clicks per month for two years. What I hope is that nobody accepts this insulting offer, and Look$mart loses half their listings, which are gong to be very hard to replace under this new scheme, and which would make them even more of a non-entity than they are now.

Even better is if MSN realizes that their SERPs are now going to vary by the time of month - Early in the months there will be listings from the free click customers, but those will run out of clicks in a few days, and so will be replaced by other less relevant listings until the next month rolls areound. Next will come those whose monthly limit was reached at one time or another , and then finally at the end of the month will be left only the diehards who have to pay per click to get a decent ranking at months end.

Is this screwy or what?

IMO Look$mart should realize that their heart has already stopped, but they are still walking around and have the decency to go off in a corner somewhere and die quietly without bothering everyone.

[Mel]

What are existing customers supposed to do?

Looking into this a bit more it appears that in order to receive the free 100 clicks per month you have to "activate" your account -which means give them you credit card details. If you do not activate your account by July 11 your L$ listing will be removed.

You must then login to your account and set both your monthly budget and the maximum number of clicks you want to be billed for monthly. Once you reach the limit of either your listing will no longer appear until the next month.

You will automatically be billed each month to the credit card you are forced to give them inorder to activate your account.

So for the time being you can log in, give them your credit card details, and so long as you are careful when you adjust your account you will get 100 free clicks every month for two years, by which time I hope there is no more Look$mart in existance.

There is no mention made of what happens to those who were included free years ago or those who are entered into their database through Zeal, but the implication is that they do not have to pay. Best to set up your sites as nonprofits and submit through Zeal if you ask me.

[ihelpyou]

Looking into this a bit more it appears that in order to receive the free 100 clicks per month you have to "activate" your account -which means give them you credit card details. If you do not activate your account by July 11 your L$ listing will be removed.
Yes. I tell ya, this is a big mess. This virtually clears nothing up at all.

So what happens if a site does NOT log in to give credit card info until July 10th? Does the site simply not get shown in MSN results?

How is MSN going to display all of the different listings? Are free Zeal listings, CPC listings, Free click listings, Overture listings, direct hit listings, Inktomi listings, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, all going to be clumped together in the results?????

oh my. How very sorry this is unfolding.

Can we believe the 'professionalism' LS is showing? How about MSN who is remaining extremely quiet about all of this?

I certainly hope the FTC comes down extremely hard on Looksmart, and then if MSN displays the results the way I think they will, comes down real hard on MSN as well.

Then, a large group will get together and sue the sh^t out of this.

[Mel]

Hi Doug:

As mentioned if you do not activate your account by the deadline your L$ listing will be removed from the database. I hope they lose so many listings that MSN looks elsewhere.

I see no need for MSN to do anything but exactly what they are doing right now (of course the SERPS they serve up from L$ will be a lot less relevant) - its up to L$ to figure out what they are going to pass to MSN and then MSN can display it exactly as they do now without any need to modify anything.

I see that the smart L$ lawyers have paved the way for this a long time ago - you can't complain if free listings are mixed in with the PPI since that is what they have been doing all along, and you can't complain that (just yet anyway) that you paid for a listing and didn't get it since they are going to show it for a few days each month for the next two years.

[ihelpyou]

Yes. But what about the time period before you activate your account up until July 10th? Do you simply stop being shown on MSN? Since I am not logging in anytime soon, I guess we'll know soon enough. :rolleyes:

[Advisor]

Kal, in regards to your question about old client sites (I have lots of them too), simply set their amounts to the minimum (100 clicks) then you don't have to worry about them (at least for 20 months).

I have to say that I can understand what LS is trying to do. If they were doing this for all NEW listings, it even makes sense to a certain extent. If you're getting clicks, you're theoretically making money, and should be willing to pay more to be in their directory. If you don't get too many (less than 100 a month), you can actually get a bit of a better deal than Yahoo right now.

However, I maintain that suddenly making people pay for something that they already paid for is pretty close to criminal in my book. They told us if we pay them $299 and they accept us into the directory, that it was a one-time fee. So either they lied, or they are not living up to their end of the bargain (or both). Seems to me they better change this quickly for existing sites or they're gonna see some major law suits. I wonder if the terms of their agreement are soooooo one-sided that it wouldn't even stand up in court? (Just my very uneducated opinion.) Did you see the agreement now? It said something like, "We can change the terms of this agreement any time we want to with no notice to you."! That would seem like it's not even a valid contract, but again, what do I know! I'm sure they have lawyers who helped them, so it probably is legal. But I do wonder if it would stand up in court! Class action suit...here we come!

Jill

[OptWizard]

To answer all question...this is coming from LS....

If you get a click on MSN it goes toward your LS clicks....
Any partner click goes towards LS clicks

[Advisor]

Originally posted by OptWizard
To answer all question...this is coming from LS....

If you get a click on MSN it goes toward your LS clicks....
Any partner click goes towards LS clicks Until MSN (hopefully) dumps them. (Okay, I know I'm dreaming...MSN wants the bucks from this just as much as LS does and is probably doing the happy dance right now.)

J

[MazY]

Originally posted by Advisor
Until MSN (hopefully) dumps them. (Okay, I know I'm dreaming...MSN wants the bucks from this just as much as LS does and is probably doing the happy dance right now.)

J

I'll have a word with Bill... :D

[Cavetoad]

Good to hear that I'll be able to get my sites out of LS and will be able to put them in Zeal. Most of the sites I've submitted to LS have been non-profits from before there was the Zeal connection so I paid for them. Now I'll go in and yank them from LS and get them going in Zeal. Zeal likes them.

this is loopy.

-Tom

[ihelpyou]

The Zeal issue and LS is very murky.

They say if you have paid for ONE url in Looksmart, you cannot get any url's in Zeal. That's supposedly the deal.

Clear as muck.

[Advisor]

They say if you have paid for ONE url in Looksmart, you cannot get any url's in Zeal. I don't think we really know that for sure, Doug. It doesn't say anything like that in LookSmart's terms (that I could see).

I don't think this is the time to spread "rumors" until we know all the facts for sure. Yes, that one person in the thread said what happened to him, but we don't know all the facts. It's important to reserve judgement until we know for sure how things are working, in my opinion.

Jill

[Cavetoad]

I can't even get into LS to look at my 'account' at all. It just hangs when I try to click to get in.
I know that historically it didn't matter if you had paid LS listings if you could get Zeal listings as well. They just had to be from other domains. If you paid for a site to go to LS you couldn't take a page from that site and try and get it in Zeal for extra exposure, it's either submit the site to LS or Zeal. That might be what they're talking about.

[Cavetoad]

From the L$ 'assistance' page:
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What happens to my listing between now and when I activate?

To get you started with Small Business Listings, we're giving you a free monthly account credit of $15 worth of clicks per listing for your next three monthly billing cycles. When you activate your account, those free monthly account credits will be extended for a total of twenty months.

What if I don't activate my account?

Previous customers who are upgraded to Small Business Listings but chose not to activate their account by July 11, 2002 will cease to receive traffic from the LookSmart Network of partners.

In order to re-instate a listing, you would be required to pay the $49 Listing Set-up Fee and you would no longer be eligible for the promotional offer of $300 worth of free clicks.
--------------------------------------------

well that answers the what happens if you don't activate your acct.. It sits in limbo with $15/clicks until July 11th when it gets dropped. Then and only then could you try for Zeal or whatever you wanted to try.
But it sounds like once you go through your clicks you don't go to MSN until the click pile is refreshed. I think.
Arrrrgh. This stinks.

[ihelpyou]

It's important to reserve judgement until we know for sure how things are working, in my opinion.
We all have been screwed Jill. That is a fact. No judgement with that is involved.

The only sites who will make out are those with DEEP pockets. They can continue on and on and get top listings throughout the month.

ZEAL sites will Not be shown prominently. We can bet on it.

[Advisor]

Yes, we've been screwed, and we've been had. Of that, I have no doubt.ZEAL sites will Not be shown prominently. We can bet on it.I am not betting on that...yet, at least.

J

[Mel]

IMO L$ have enough on their (and their lawyers) plates at the moment that they will not mess with the ranking algo at all.

This way they can say we are still delivering the same content as before, the only thing that has changed is how you pay for it.

So I suspect that so long as you play their game you will see no change in the L$ results in MSN with regard to either paid or zeal sites.

But the logical end of it seems to be that towards the end of the month when the paid SERPs start getting thinner on the ground, the Zeal and old free sites will get respectivley better rankings, and once more L$ will be able to say, "see we're not hurting anyone with our new $cheme, and in fact the free sites are faring even better".

There will have been lots of consultations with their PR people as well as the lawyers before this $cheme wasbrought up out of the sewers.

[Advisor]

Mel, it's possible we will see ranking changes because it appears that they removed ALL keywords associated with our sites in order to get us to pay extra for them. (Even though we already paid for them to begin with.)

This could definitely effect the rankings (if they truly did remove them). It's possible they haven't actually removed them, but are just trying to see if people will pay for what they already have. Why would that not surprise me?

Jill

[MakeMeTop]

>consultations with their PR people ..

Well, they should either fire their PR people or they didn't take their advice! This is a PR catastrophy for them :(

I (like you) have spent several thousand $ with L$. To spring this on normal web masters is bad enough. To put this out when I have lots of clients and I can't give a straight answer on how this works makes me look incompetent!

I'm not happy!

[Advisor]

So where are they located? Let's go storm their offices with torches and kill the beast!!! (I'm speaking metaphorically of course ;) )

At any rate, most likely they'll be dead from their own sickness soon enough. Wonder if anyone will attend their funeral. Can I give the eulogy? :D

Jill

[ihelpyou]

I have already received many emails today.

My answer to them?

"I have NO CLUE YET. We just have to wait and see."

[Advisor]

Yep, I've just received a bunch too. Interesting that people think we might know any more than they do!

J

[OptWizard]

Why so negative..Look at the good side...LS powers MSN Now we can change descriptions and keyword so if you land that top listing for MSN can generate lots of leads? AM I wrong for thinking this way....

[Advisor]

Opt, you're correct...but that should apply to NEW listings. It's not right for them to charge people for what they already paid for.

The good thing is that changing a description IS cheaper now. There are some good things about it, that is true. But since they didn't grandfather past sites in, they're getting all the flak. It's not fair, it's not right, and it makes them look bad (because that's what they are). Even Yahoo had the sense to grandfather the previously listed sites. And who (before now) was more arrogant than Yahoo?

Jill

[OptWizard]

You are grandfatyhered in to an extent you get $15 worth of clicks for 20 months which is the 300 dollars?

I have not checjed yet they are charging for Description changes?

[Advisor]

That's not what I would call "grandfathered"! For one thing, we paid to be listed not just for 20 months. For another, we paid to be listed and get as many clicks as would come. Where's the grandfathering there?

That said, 100 clicks a month will probably be plenty for most small business sites. But many here seem to say there's will be used up really quickly. I personally haven't seen that kind of traffic from any looksmart partner, but perhaps I have been doing something wrong all this time! Maybe I'll go back and check my logs. Perhaps I do get that many or more for some sites. But off the top of my head, I can't think of any.

Jill

[Cavetoad]

I just cancelled my LS listings. I have zero budget to play their game right now. The sites I cancelled have a good shot at getting into Zeal so next week I'm going to go Zeal-happy and start putting them in there. I didn't feel like sitting around and waiting to see what is going to happen. Clearly you're in or out, and with the news that affiliate clicks count toward the totals, forget it.

-Tom

[Advisor]

Do they have an easy way to cancel? I didn't notice that. Let us know how it goes with Zeal. I hope you checked the non-commercial categories in Zeal before you canceled. They are extremely limited...

Jill

[Grant]

Originally posted by Kal
(how they expect non search engine savvy customers to understand this I'll never know!).


You're telling me! I just signed up on the 2nd of April, now my account is upgraded to a Pay-PerClick?!?!?!

I don't want anymore PPC deals. I'm being sucked dry from Overture as it is!

I just don't understand the benefits for ME!



:confused: :confused: :confused:

[Cavetoad]

The sites I have been working with are all featuring medical information for the public. I have put many in Zeal and had as good success with it as I saw with LS. Should work for me I think. Most of the categories are there.

And there is an easy way to cancel your LS listing. In LS when you're on the account details page wich lists all your URLs. On the lower half of the page is the detailed list of your listings, in there you have a little link that says "cancel" for each listing.
Follow that, check the checkboxes that affirm your choice, tell them why ( I selected "too expensive" as my choice ) and you're free from the PPC shackles.

-Tom

[Mel]

Originally posted by Advisor
Mel, it's possible we will see ranking changes because it appears that they removed ALL keywords associated with our sites in order to get us to pay extra for them. (Even though we already paid for them to begin with.)

This could definitely effect the rankings (if they truly did remove them). It's possible they haven't actually removed them, but are just trying to see if people will pay for what they already have. Why would that not surprise me?

Jill

I have checked MSN rankings for listings that ranked well on the "invisible" LS keywords previously and they seem unchanged, which would indicate to me that either they have not removed them or MSN has not yet been sent the changes.

Do you have any further information?

[Advisor]

The only info I have is in my account. For all my sites, it shows NO associated keywords. Doesn't mean they don't actually have some, or that if they do, they won't be removed eventually, but that's all I know!

Jill

[ihelpyou]

(oh, Jill said it in here as well.) :)

I have not upgraded yet and am still ranked as usual in MSN with all keywords associated in place.

[ihelpyou]

Welcome to the forums Grant! :hi:

[Advisor]

No, Doug, not NOW receiving zero clicks. Not sure if I was EVER receiving clicks from them. Most of the sites I have in there are old client sites that I don't maintain any more. As far as I know, they haven't been getting clicks for ages.

Most of my sites that do get clicks from MSN are inktomi ones and/or Zeal ones.

Jill

[ihelpyou]

OH. I have lots of clients who get many clicks a day from their LS listing on MSN, including the forums front page. Check out this term on MSN:

free search engines

and all combos of that including

free search

#1 on MSN and getting many hits a day. What will happen since I will not upgrade? I paid the 200 bucks for a listing last June before I knew that zeal was a viable option. Now, seems to me the forum listing is screwed in a big way. This is why I will wait until July to see what happens.

[Advisor]

How many clicks a day is many? (Just curious) Are they from MSN?

Jill

[ihelpyou]

Yes, mostly from MSN. Of course, because the front page has number ones on good terms, a few partners of LS occassionally send referrals as well.

But yes, many is many. :)

Put it this way, the 100 clicks will be used up in two days, max.

So when does my 100 free clicks a month start? When I log in? When I activate the account for these forums? What if I don't log in until July 10th? Is the listing dropped before that? Is the listing dropped from MSN? If not dropped, when the 100 clicks are used up AND I have not logged in, what happens? Do I stop receiving clicks from MSN eventhough I have not logged in yet?

See? Many questions unanswered.

[Advisor]

Well, you've got contacts over at LS, right? Have you asked them yet? We'd ALL like to know!

Jill

[ihelpyou]

Contacts? Oh sure, when I spend money with them. :)

I have just gotten back a standard auto-reply to questions.

[Advisor]

free search engines
and all combos of that including
free search
#1 on MSN and getting many hits a day. Hey Doug, I was curious about those words because they didn't seem like they would bring a whole lot of hits (say to use up a looksmart month quickly), and according to WordTracker, they don't get lots of searches. So you're getting tons of hits from MSN for those phrases? If so, then I gotta truly wonder about WordTracker's accuracy.

Hmm...nevermind...it appears that WordTracker is malfunctioning at the moment. It's showing every word as getting NO searches! How strange!

J

[ihelpyou]

You are right! Even the word 'free' and 'sex' show zero searches a day. LOL

I don't remember how many wordtracker shows for those terms but you don't have to show too many to get hits from being number one.

Something else to consider:

MSN does NOT show any PPC listings for those terms so the forums come up a TRUE #1 on MSN. :)

[Advisor]

That's funny that you said 'sex.' Don was just walking by while I was checking WordTracker and I told him it was broken...he told me to try sex also! MEN!

Jill

[Kal]

Originally posted by ihelpyou
So when does my 100 free clicks a month start? When I log in? When I activate the account for these forums? What if I don't log in until July 10th? Is the listing dropped before that?
Doug, if you want to utilise the oh so generous 100 free clicks per month, you have to activate your LS account. You do that by logging in and hitting activate in the annoying popup that appears, then entering your credit card details. You are not charged anything on your card and you are NOT billed automatically. But when your free clicks run out, apparently they email you and ask if you want to "top up" your account with the credit card details you've already provided.

If you don't login before 10th July, they will assume you want to cancel your account and drop your listing (I think). Of course most existing customers will activate because it is the only way to savalge any value from their previous submission payment.

I have about 5 LS accounts with around 8 URL's associated with each one. I've activated one account to check out the process. Customers with Site Promote don't "need" to log in as their accounts are activated automatically. These customers are entitled to the "relevancy keywords" they bought via Site Promote, so in addition to getting their 100 free clicks for their site listing, they are entitled to the equivalent number of "paid clicks". So at 29.95 per month for Site Promote, they are now entitled to 200 more clicks per month (at 15c per click) for as long as they continue to pay the extra, thus getting a total of 300 clicks per month. Phew!

Doug - I too will lose a LOT of traffic out of this deal. MSN sends me about 30% of my site traffic and same with my clients. Those 100 (or even 300) clicks won't last long at all. This truly reeks. :(

[ihelpyou]

If you don't login before 10th July, they will assume you want to cancel your account and drop your listing (I think). Of course most existing customers will activate because it is the only way to savalge any value from their previous submission payment.

That did Not answer my questions Kal.

Yes. I know that if you do Not log in Before July 10th you lose your listing. That is Not the issue. The issue is, What if I DO login on July 9th? Does my free clicks start then? What about until then?

I am still receiving hits from MSN and partners right now without logging in.

[nuzelonde]

By activating your account you also agree to their new TOS.
Sneaky.

[Advisor]

Doug, you can log in, but not activate your account. I realized tonight that I had 2 different accounts with L$. (Two different email addresses.) Interestingly enough, they had one site listed in BOTH of my accounts and would have been apparently double charging me for it. At any rate, for the second account, I logged on, but didn't activate my credit card. Things have changed since when I logged on right after their first email. They are now currently already deducting your *free* (that's a laugh), $15 worth of clicks whether or not you activate your account. After the 100 clicks are gone, you get no more that month since you haven't given them any way to charge you.

At least this is how I understood it. The site I had in my second account was a dead site, but it had received 2 clicks, which they had deducted from my (unactivated) account.

Hope this clears things up for you. Your clicks are all getting deducted, whether or not you sign up, and you'll stop getting clicks once you reach your limit. I still am not sure if Kal is right or not about being able to share clicks among sites. It appears as if you *may* be able to, which would be the only good thing I've seen yet with this program. That is, you could steal a few clicks from a site that only gets a few, and let one of your sites that need it use them. But I'm not entirely sure if this is how it works or not as I didn't read everything yet, nor know if they explain this aspect of it.

I don't think so many people would be complaining about this program had they simply grandfathered the previous sites in. As it is, they're gonna be facing an angry mob for quite some time. Did you notice someone quoted from that Campbell Soup case in the Yahoo Finance boards? Thought that was pretty funny (it wasn't me).

Jill

[dvduval]

Has anybody seen anything about click protection, so that people can't sit there and spend your money?

Probably patented by Overture. I don't who's going to be the winner here, but it won't be me.

We should start a new thread about the best paid services and compare them. Could we do a poll? That would be spectacular!!!

C'mon Doug. Do a poll for the best paid services.

[Mel]

hi DV Duval:

there is an intersting post in I-Search bout ongoing click fraud at some of the PPC engines. Have a read of this and then how do you feel:

[MakeMeTop]

Well, the first day's clicks appear to be running and here is the news I got:

LookSmart Notice: Based on your listings' performance, your budget may be reached within your current billing cycle. Reaching your budget will cause traffic to your listings to be temporarily paused. Increase your monthly budget to $3,300 to ensure that your sites continue to receive valuable traffic from the LookSmart Network.

This means I need to spend $39,600 per year to maintain my current level of referals :confused:

This is NUTS :D

Shows I was good at the old L$ listings though - 22,000 referals a month isn't too shabby. Pity I'm going to lose them :(

[Advisor]

Yep, MMT, that's what happened to me too. Nice way to really make people mad at you. This is truly crazy!

Jill

[dvduval]

Mel,
You do kind of wonder how good LookSmart is with tracking clicks, especially since they are new at this. I tested something at my own expense on my own site with a very reputable PPC ("reputable PPC" how funny). I was able to click 5 times per day from the same IP address for 7 days in a row and it surely appeared on my bill.

Advisor and MakeMeTop,

It seems that the better the potential you are as a customer to them, the more out of reach the price is. Assuming that you can fit $3300 into your monthly budget, there are better deals to be found. I'm still waiting for Doug to do a survey of the best paid services.

[ihelpyou]

Me? I don't even use "paid" services except Yahoo directory now. How could I do that? :)

You can start a thread if you wish as anyone can start a voting poll on anything.

[Advisor]

Well, as MakeMeTop as already pointed out, we can get better exposure on MSN through Overture, for less money. Seems pretty clear if you're into MSN that Overture and Ink are the best ways to go now.

As to click fraud, why does that not surprise me. Did you try clicking your own LS listings and see them appear multiple times?

Jill

[ihelpyou]

LOL. The click fraud thing will be a dandy!!

I really doubt they have thought a lot about that. LOL Serves em right.

The big companies will get so upset with LS because of fraud, they will quit them as well.

[Great-1]

Oh how I wish I was one of those small business's that could exist on 100 clicks per month. At the moment, 100 clicks won't last me a day! I get about 4500 per month from Looksmart and another 19,500 from MSN.

If anyone's got the odd million they wanna lend me, I'd appreciate it.

Here's my impression of Looksmart:

"Hello, I'm from Looksmart. If you're a small website with little traffic, please take advantage of our generous free clicks. If you are a large website, with a large amount of funding, please allow yourself to be robbed blind. If you are a medium website, with fair traffic, but little capital, kindly sod off."

[ihelpyou]

Good point. Seeing what the new biz model is, it's really hard to figure out who LOOK is alienating the most! LOL

[Advisor]

I wonder if their model for medium to large busineses might actually be *cheaper*! They say it's at least $2500, but that's less than what most will have to pay with this supposed small business crap listing thingee they have now.

Doesn't matter to me what they do. I have no more interest in dealing with them.

Jill

[Great-1]

Yeah but $2500 just to stay where I am.....

I can think of a few places to stick their medium business model.

[Advisor]

Originally posted by Great-1
I can think of a few places to stick their medium business model. Can I help you stuff it up there?

J

[Great-1]

Originally posted by Advisor
Can I help you stuff it up there?

By all means. It should also shut them up, seeing as they've been talking out of their "ahem" backsides, about this

[Kal]

I totally agree with MMT - THIS IS NUTS! :horns:

As I said in the other thread, two of my client sites have already reached their 100 click maximum in 4 days!! I found out via an email Looksmart sent to me as well.

For one account, I am now receiving $120 worth of free clicks per month whereas by their own admission, the value of this L$ account under the old system was $1,200. So according to their own figures, they have clearly reduced the value of my investment by 1000%. And they expect me to come up with this extra 900% just to get what I was already getting for nothing? :green:

I very nearly posted this over at the Yahoo LOOK board but thought better of it. If they are so blinded by perceived profit spin it is doubtful they will be interested in the customer perspective. My guess is that chookfart shares will boom for the next week or two and then bust BIG TIME as customers start receiving their "your 100 free clicks are up" email and the true reality of their deception sinks in.

[Matt B]

Has anyone received a refund for a recent Look$mart submission?

We submitted a client a month ago and the new system is not favorable to them, or anybody for that matter.

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

[ihelpyou]

Not that I know of. I highly doubt they would refund a dime to anyone. Like was said in another thread, L$ needs the money. :balling: Let us cry for them. sheesh.

You could try a 'charge back' on them. Simply call your bank. Tell them you paid for one thing, and got another.

[ihelpyou]

Wow. The numbers of url's that are falling off the msn search directory results from Looksmart are staggering. It doesn't look like too many sites are buying into this L$ scam. The results are starting to look very bleak and I wonder how long searchers who are using msn to search will continue to do so?

[MsSearch]

Let LS results fall off MSN...then our Inktomi listings will get better exposure

[Matt B]

I am tickled to see this happen so fast. Makes me feel like we actually have some influence on this situation.

[Advisor]

Oh that's interesting, they're actually deleting them from the directory after all? Danny was wondering about that, as it hadn't seemed to quite happen yet when we were in London. Hopefully he is aware of this. He's planning another L$ edition of his newsletter any day now.

Jill

[ihelpyou]

Both my sites are now officially out of the msn 'web site' results including these forums.

NICE job L$. I Hope your database goes to ****!

Just to be very clear. I did NOT activate any accounts. Your free clicks accumulate no matter whether or not you activate. Once they are gone, you are dropped from MSN a few days later. You do NOT have to activate.

Again, the wording LS uses makes you think you have until July 10th to activate. You don't have to do anything at all and you will be dropped.

[Matt B]

I wonder how MSN is taking all of this. I'm not sure they could forsee the majority of the SEO Community dropping out and taking clients with them. I can't imagine "Joe Small Business Owner" going along with this changeover, either.

Hopefully, website owners have searched for other opinions about this change rather than taking the L$ propaganda that is being shrouded in happy talk.

I told my boss the other day that I was going to start saving him money, but I needed an extra $1,500 each month, and ultimately he would see the savings. Even though I was going to be working less each month, and some months I might not even work after a week or two.

He didn't believe me either. But I think now he understands what L$ is doing.

[dvduval]

My Inktomi referrals are thru the roof.
Coming to realize I never needed LookSmart anyway.

[Cavetoad]

My Ink traffic as seen on my PosTech charts has gone way way up ever since the LS fiasco began and I yanked my sites from LS.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire perhaps? Maybe. But hey, the traffics nice and I'll take it.

[Matt B]

I have already increased the number of pages that I am including in the Ink submission program. I wasn't sold on it before, but I guess that it is the better of two bad options.

I wonder how Ink's stock will do now?

[ihelpyou]

LOL. It seems the only sites to gain from the L$ debacle are Inktomi and Overture. Not only has L$ seemingly hurt themselves, they have greatly enhanced their competitors and made their competitor benefits more appealing.

:green:

[Matt B]

It makes Google's policy of not paying for results that much more refreshing. And still my favorite.

[Great-1]

Interestingly my site still appears on Looksmart, so I guess I haven't had enough clicks. Ha ha. In your face Looksmart!!!!!

[Advisor]

You'll know if you've had enough clicks as you'll get an email telling you to pay up or else.

Jill

[Great-1]

Thanks Jill. I haven't had that email yet, so, once again, a little bit louder: IN YOUR FACE LOOKSMART !!!!!!!!!!!!

[Matt B]

I though everyone would appreciate this little tidbit about a university study on paid placement sites.

I know this is more overture's place, but I consider this to be relevant because the consumer's understanding of the search results affects the "business" of the property.

http://library.northernlight.com/FG20020415060000098.html

Commercial content providers are interested in clickthroughs and conversion rates. For this reason, content providers have an incentive towards paid placement," says Feng. "However, paid placement strategies have a negative impact on a search engine's perceived quality and credibility. Generally speaking, search engines must act as referees of relevance or they will lose market share."

HHHMMMMM, Relevance = quality, how original.

[ihelpyou]

HHHMMMMM, Relevance = quality, how original.


hmm. How do we spell.............





























G ........ O ...........O.............G..............L..............E

[Matt B]

You said it!

I think this move by L$ will make me more active in Google's AdWords, just to show my appreciation for an SE "doing it" right. And supporting Google with a little more cash won't hurt.