New looksmart

[traveller]

Hi all;

Maybe this has been answered maybe not but it is a big concern and I am wondering if anyone out there can help.

I have 3 websites in looksmart ( submitted in 2001). Yet they ONLY gave me 300 FREE clicks for all 3 websites.???

I paid for 3 insertions so should receive 300 clicks/insertion I think.

what happens when the clicks/money runs out? looksmart is directory and not a se, will they pull my url's? And if they do then when the next month rolls around will they be inserted in the same position?

Why can't I set 1 url to zero?

I use webtrends to track domains that feed me traffic. Yet I see very little from looksmart ( but lots form aol and MSN) Yet on the stats page for looksmart is says I have been averaging over 30 clicks/day ($4.50++) do they count clicks that come in via aol/msn as coming form them?

Why does the next billing begin on May 21st?? It has been that since I started checking ( on the 14th) Isn't 1 month about 30 days??:-)

Thta means $199 for submission and an average of $120/month. Thtas a lot of cash. alot more than I pay goto opr 7 search.

Any help out there??

Thanks

[ihelpyou]

Yep. We are just as confused as you are. Read all the threads about this to try to decipher things. We can't decipher much so don't feel left out. :)

[dvduval]

On a good note...
Since this started I've noticed a pretty good increase in my Inktomi traffic. Could that be because of the dropped sites on LookSmart? Anybody else notices an increase on Inktomi?

[traveller]

I think that looksmart needs to really clairfy what the F#@k they are doing!!

As I now understand it I get 100 free clicks/month/url.

If I don't set the budget over the $45 I WILL NOT be charged on my credit card.

If one of my sites gets less than the 100 clicks the rest will be divided between the other 2 on a certain % basis( how they will figure that out??)

BUT what I still don't get is they will not let me set one url to zero.

AND will they just keep going until I hit 300 clicks rather than 100 for each ( for to do that they would need to wait until the end of the billing peroid to see if I do reach the 100) and then would they add the remaining clicks that I didn't use for as url to the next month?

BUT I Think we all need to find out what happens when we hit the 100 click mark. Will they pull our sites? No one has said anything about that that I have read ( and have been reading all the threads for the past 2 hours!!)

PLUS they stated, "Select 10 keywords or phrases at no extra cost."
but when you try to do that they ask for $49 ( minus the $20 coupon they give you.

I am confused as hell

[dvduval]

Hey New Kid

It's shocking when you first find out and as you start to realize the implications it's even worse.

It's hard to imagine that it's going to work, though.
I've been watching the Yahoo Finace Message Boards also. With the widespread disaproval and protest I bet the stock goes down.

http://messages.yahoo.com/bbs?action=topics&board=22689351&sid=22689351&type=r

What scares me is that Overture seems to have disappeared from MSN in the last 45 minutes...sure hope this is temporary.

[MsSearch]

:hi: new kid...

Once your sites use up their clicks for that month, your listing *should* disappear until the next billing cycle starts (which you mentioned was May 21st for you).

For the site you want to set at zero clicks, that may be seen as canceling that listing but instead of canceling (you'll lose those 100 clicks/month) why don;t you try setting the click limit to 1 or 2 unless LS has set a minimum number of clicks in order to remain *active*....

[dvduval]

100 is the lowest so far as I can tell

[Alan Perkins]

It's done off dollars not clicks. $15 per month is the minimum spend, which represents 100 clicks maximum. You are "allowed" less than 100 clicks if that's what the algo grants you. If you don't hit 100 clicks, your CPC is higher than $0.15.

[traveller]

You cannpot set it at less than 100 BUT since I have one site that uses a lot less I wanted to use the 100 from that site and use them for the other 2 sites that do better.
I read on another thread that if you don't use the full 100 they will divide them amongst the other sites.

What do you mean "disappear" So your saying that we pay to allow ourseleves to be judged relevant enough to be placed in looksmart ( at $199 at pre saeson price) and now that we are in we only get 100 FREE clicks and if we don't want to pay them more we are pushed out?

How long before Yahoo does the same?

What happens to our position once we are pushed out and then come back in after the next billing cycle begins? Start all over?
Will we also be dumped from MSN since they pull from looksmart?

Boy it seems if we don't pay we lose.

I assume by whats going on that ONLY big commerical sites that have unlimited funds will be in SE in the near future.

Doesn't really seem fair to the middle to lower guys at all.:-)

A sort of catch 22, you pay and you make $$, you don't and you don't get listed ( ie make $$)

[traveller]

and following this.
Lets say I boost my spending to say 600 clicks. ( pay for an additional 300 clicks) Would they be divided equally between my 3 sites and what happens if one site only gets 75 clicks??
do I lose the other 125 clicks??

Not quite right I would say and looksmart needs to address this.

What If I only want to pay the additioanl money for one url and leave the others at the free 100 clicks??

HOW???

[tlacaelel]

I believe everyone is jumping to conclusions about what's going to happen with their existing LookSmart directory listings, originally purchased as LookSmart's "Submit" product offering.

But this is understandable given the woeful lack of informative and meaningful communications from LookSmart. Instead they have been intimidating and confusing in their mass e-mails sent to customers in this bungled launch of a Cost-per-click (CPC) product named "LookSmart Small Business Listings" (TM). They have told everyone that all existing directory listings must be converted to Small Business Listings. They haven't said much else of any help.

This has caused everyone to assume that they must activate their new account, and set a budget for clicks (also to receive their free monthly $15.00 credit worth a hundred clicks). Thereby they assume that if their budget is passed, their Featured Listings appearance will stop. LookSmart has even sent emails that say this.

Others, like me, who are still fuming about this compulsory, unfair, and ill-conceived new product offering are refusing to activate their accounts. Many are assuming that if they don't activate their account (esp. before July 11 deadline) that they won't have any budget (other than perhaps the $15 free credit until July 11), and that their listings won't be appearing at all. Further, they assume that if they don't activate as a new CPC listing customer by July 11, that their listing may well be deleted from LookSmart, or at the very least suppressed from appearing.

(This idea about listings being deleted is just plain silly. Why would LookSmart start deleting (or suppressing) entries from a directory which they have struggled for years to build. It won't happen.)

So many people are assuming that listings which are not activated as CPC, and CPC listings which are activated but quickly pass their limited budget amount, will stop appearing in LookSmart Search Results on LookSmart and their partners, such as MSN.

This cannot possibly be true.


Evan Thornley (LookSmart's CEO) said two days ago in an e-mail reply to my question about what will happen to old Submit listings. (I will paraphrase here since the moderator over on Webmasterworld keeps editing my posts any time I include a literal quote):

*** LookSmart's CEO Says ***

I believe there may be some misunderstandings about our commitment to directory (we are absolutely committed to directory) but we are evolving our pricing model for same.

(His message went on to say (allege) that the acceptance of the new product has been very very strong and it appears that the value proposition has been attractive to many customers. I personally don't believe this.)

Until proven otherwise by visible actions on the part of LookSmart, I believe that their intended course is to continue delivering the same LookSmart Directory that they have always had.

What LookSmart has been doing these past two months is launching a new CPC product and trying to force their entire registered listings customer base to convert to the new product, even if only to accept the free credits. After the 20 months of free credits, then they must start to make the $15 minimum monthly click buy with their credit card. Please note that this equals a $180 per year fee to have your listing active as a Small Business Listing.

Do you see where this is going?

LookSmart is actively converting their paid-up, single-time-registration customer base from the old "Submit" product into the new "Small Business Listings" product, which happens to have a $180 per year cost (the $15 minimum monthly buy).

*** THE BOTTOM LINE ***

LookSmart is now a $180 per year Directory. Get it?

All directory listings must continue to appear all the time, whether they are CPC activated or not, and whether they have any budget left or not.

After the July 11 activation deadline, if LookSmart stopped showing the listings of all accounts which hadn't activated, they would "turn off" 90% of their directory. Then they would be useless to their portal parners (MSN) as a directory since all of their listings just disappeared.

Also, if LookSmart stopped showing CPC-activated listings which exhausted their free $15 credit, and/or whatever higher budget the customer had allowed with their credit card, then also the vast majority of CPC-listings would quickly start disappearing early each month as well.

So by the 5th day of the month, 99.2% of the LookSmart Directory would be gone from search results. There wouldn't be any more results to show. Their portal partners like MSN would have no use for them.

This is obviously impossible. So what's really going on?

LookSmart has begun delivering two kinds of results: Featured Listings (first) and Reviewed Web Sites (second).

I am absolutely certain that everyone will continue to show up in Reviewed Web Sites both now and in the future.

After July 11, only those who have activated and have click budget left will appear in the Featured Listings, but everyone will still appear all the time in the Reviewed Web Sites listings. (Before July 11, I think most listings are showing up under Featured Listings, sort of for free I guess ... or because they don't have all of their software implemented yet.)

This has to be true. LookSmart wouldn't have any search results to deliver to their syndication partners if they stopped showing listings of non-CPC-activated listings customers, and CPC-customers whose budget was (very quickly) exhausted.

So I guess we'll all have to accept that just like Yahoo!'s $299 annual fee, that LookSmart will be a $180 annual fee from now on.

I think the jury's still out on whether LookSmart will backtrack on this compulsory changeover for all existing customers. Yahoo! grandfathered all pre-existing listings, but LookSmart decided to LookStupid (TM) and stir up an enormous hornet's nest by trying to force all of their existing customers to change to the monthly minimum fee associated with the new product. That has got to be the stupidest thing in recent marketing history, for a company to force all of its paid-up, single-time-fee, long-time customers to switch over to a new monthly fee model. A really, really bad move. They obviously don't see things from the customer's point oof view.

I invite anyone to question the logic behind my position. It looks pretty bulletproof to me. 8)

What LookSmart is guilty of here is an incredibly aggressive marketing tactic to try to coerce, force, intimidate, and scare their existing Submit customers to convert to a new CPC product offering which has, at a minimum, an annual cost of $180.

*** I invite you to visit my new website about this whole sorry situation with LookSmart at www.actdumb.com. There are a few links up there now, but later this weekend I will add my treatise on why the "LookSmart CPC Listings Launch is Doomed to Fail." ***

[clarification added later]:

I can only foresee one condition in which LookSmart would be willing to play real hard ball and start deleting or suppressing Directory listings for old listings customers who have refused to activate.

After some time has passed, perhaps two years, and after whatever further program/pricing changes LookSmart makes, if say 40-60% of the LookSmart Directory customers have converted over to Small Business Listings (with the $180 annual minimum), only then LookSmart might be willing to start removing old customers.

Until LookSmart has added a lot of new CPC customers, in the next year or two, and until they have a large percentage of their existing customers converted over to CPC-monthly fee, they wouldn't dare start turning off listings. Until they have a LARGE base of activated CPC listings, their directory would be just too tiny without all of the old listings.

Or they might be real jerks and start conditionally returning listings which aren't activated. Sometimes your listing shows up, sometimes it doesn't. If the query term search for didn't generate enough CPC listings, then they'll included some non-CPC listings to "fill it out". But if the search term was generating enough (10?) CPC listings, then you might not show up.

Given LookSmart's recent behaviour, I wouldn't put anything past them.

The best course of action for now is DO NOTHING. Do not activate your CPC account, and surely do not cancel your listing (as some have been saying). Let's all just wait and see what comes of this. If LookSmart has a very, very low participation rate in their CPC program, then they will have very little power to play hard ball with the existing listings customers.

What a colossal waste of time this all is. Are you thinking that too?

[ihelpyou]

hmmm. Good thoughts. It makes sense to me!

For many of your reasons are the reasons why I have NOT activated my account as well. All my sites in my account continue to get LOTS of referrals from MSN and partners. I figure that as long as I don't activate, the much better off we all are. The 100 click thang has not come into play as yet. Some sites have almost 1000 clicks since this all started.

Don't activate.

[traveller]

Nice lengthy story but I have to disagree with what you have written. I think looksmart assumes that everyone will pay whatever they ask!!

From reading more on looksmart we can boost our clicks ( by paying more) and then we can say ok 200 for this url and 300 for this one and 100 for this one. By merely clicking on adjust limit

BUT we can only do that if we pay for the additional clicks

From their FAQ page on what happens when our FREE clicks are used or you don't activate your account

What if I don't want to be upgraded to a Small Business Listing?

Because LookSmart is no longer offering the Submit and Site Promote products, all previous customers of our Submit and Site Promote products have been automatically upgraded to Small Business Listings.

Previous customers are being given a special offer that will credit their account with $300 worth of clicks, a value equal to or greater than the amount they originally paid to submit their listing. Previous customers who chose not to accept this special offer and do not activate their accounts by July 11, 2002 will cease to receive traffic from the LookSmart Network of partners.


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.

What happens if I use up the entire free monthly account credit?

If your listing receives clicks equal to your free monthly account credit, you will be notified and given the opportunity to raise your monthly account budget above the initial free account credit level. By raising your monthly budget, you are increasing the amount of traffic your listing can receive each month.

If you chose not to increase you monthly budget, traffic to you listing will be temporarily interrupted once it has received clicks equal to your free monthly account credit. Your account will be refilled and your listing will begin receiving traffic again at the beginning of your next monthly billing period.

So you figure out what they mean. Don't pay--- get dumped!!

[tlacaelel]

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.

You are correct. That is what they have said. They think the can threaten hundreds of thousands of their customers.

But unless a large percentage of their customer base caves in and activates their accounts, LookSmart will have no leverage to dump all of the non-activated listings.

If only 5-10% of listings convert over to CPC, do you really believe that LookSmart would flush 90-95% of their directory down the toilet?

I recommend to everyone, DO NOT ACTIVATE your CPC account. Further, we should all BOYCOTT LOOKSMART and don't sign up any new customers for LookSmart's new Small Business Listings product.

I said in a post in the "Reverse Spin" thread the other day,

If we all boycott LookSmart (no CPC activations, and no new signups), then LookSmart will quickly "get the message" when their monthly new registrations drops to a 3-year low and stays there.

The only way LookSmart will have the power to really force (the rest of) its customers to activate their CPC or lose their listing (by deleting old listings), is if a large percentage of existing customers convert to CPC. In the absence of 30-50% activation, it would be suicide for LookSmart to just flush 70-90% of their directory down the toilet.

BOYCOTT LOOKSMART and visit www.actdumb.com

Of course, LookSmart could start being real a%#@oles and start playing tricks with non-activated listings. Sometimes they show up, sometime they don't. If enough results (CPC) are returned for the user, you won't show up, otherwise they'll include some of the non-CPC to fill out the results.

Have you noticed that Overture now includes (optional) Inktomi results after their CPC results?

Maybe LookSmart will really kill the 93.5% of their listings which don't activate for CPC. Then they can fill out their new tiny "CPC Directory" results with Inktomi, just like Overture does.

(I think Overture offers this non-CPC "Results fill" for any customers (Excite!) which offer no other results. Yes, Excite just like those fake portals that offer only ads & CPC, has dropped any directory and web search results, and only carries Overture. So I guess Overture had to add Inktomi in order to fill out the results where there are few/no keyword bids, or where the syndication partner wants "full" results, even non revenue-share results if necessary).

[ihelpyou]

Yes. ON July 10th, if I decide to NOT activate my account with MANY url's in it, Looksmart can do as they please with the MANY url's in it.

I ain't NEVER activating my account as it is right now with all the url's under the same DAMN credit card..... MINE.

No big loss to me if Looksmart delists all the url's because of not activating. Until that time, the url's will continue to receive referrals so all is just fine. Besides, if they are deleted after the 10th of July, so what? Any url's who wish to continue can simply sign-up again using their OWN credit card and continue on. No big thang at all.

DON'T ACTIVATE.

If Looksmart tries to pull any fast ones on me and my urls or my credit card BEFORE July 10th, it is Fraud. Case closed.

DON'T ACTIVATE.