LookSmart listings missing?

[Advisor]

Am I crazy or are the LookSmart listings not showing at MSN.com?

I'm not finding any LS tracking codes. Someone pointed this out on the Y! Finance LookSmart board, and I thought they must be wrong, but I'm not seeing LS anywhere.

Anyone else?

Jill

[ihelpyou]

I'll bet the LOOK share holders are on the edge of their chairs about now? I don't see any tracking codes at all !!@@!!

Maybe just a glitch with MSN but can you imagine if LS lost MSN as a partner? LOL

[Advisor]

ALL ZEAL listings first! hahahaha

Could be a glitch...hard to say.

The stock tanked after their quarterly results which were actually very good. Perhaps some people knew something we didn't know?

If MSN really does drop them, they'd be toast.

I did see a couple of Look hijackings on Ink listings, but that was it. Only in the WebPage section, not Web Directory. BUT...they are using Look descriptions. Many Zeal sites it appears. Puts some of my articles up in the top 30 on MSN for search engine optimization, which is unprecidented!

[ihelpyou]

This could be major. Keep watch on their stock price Jill. You say it went down right after their earnings statement? That sounds like some insiders got a hold of some damaging information. Boy oh boy, if something happened between MSN and Looksmart, it would affectively put Looksmart right out of business.

[Advisor]

Yes, they had their first quarter of profitability, and the stock tanked. It was quite surprising. I've even been saying nice things about them lately. They got rid of ezula, they're making money, they seem to be trying to change their image.

But this is big. Seems like an awfully strange glitch. The stock is down some today too.

J

[Lingerboy]

I noticed the same thing. MSN has been doing to strange things the past few days. They were missing the Overture results for a while earlier in the week. Last week they were redirecting their UK site to the US site. I bet they are tweeking. Wonder what they would replace looksmart with....maybe nothing. They are probebly ticked off that LS is stuffing their general listings with paid listing and not sharing any of the loot. I hope they do go to pure INK, but I don't see it lasting. Not with Yahoo controlling INK. Maybe they will go with FAST. Who knows?

[Advisor]

I believe they are sharing "the loot" with MSN.

But perhaps MSN is jealous of Yahoo's wonderful Google listings and relevancy, so they're trying to do something about it. With paid-look listings they'll never have great results to keep people using MSN search. Maybe they've just gotten smarter? (Nah...doubtful!)

Jill

[MsSearch]

...or maybe since the 'free clicks' period is over, not many people renewed or switched to PPC so there's no sites to show :D

...just kidding...

I'm not seeing the tracking codes either...hopefully MSN has come to her senses and dumped ol' LookDumb....

[Lingerboy]

They're back. MSN has been messing about alot lately. Over this past weekend, I noticed that my looksmart links in MSN would not resolve to the appropriate destination. They would lead to an error page on LS.

I think MSN is getting ready to make some changes...which they should, b/c their search is pretty nasty.

[leadbetter]

Someone posted this in another forum...

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

This email just in from Looksmart in reply to my earlier email to them today.

----reply starts-----

Hi Peter,

Thanks for contacting us.

We are experiencing a problem today with our paid listings on MSN.com.
Most, if not all, of our paid listings are not being distributed in
live search results due to a technical issue. We are aware of this
problem and teams are working to resolve it as soon as possible.

We appreciate your patience.

Regards,

Ashley Cartwright
LookSmart Small Business Listings Team

-----reply ends----