1Lit.com
12-05-2003, 17:55/05:55PM
I have had extensive discussions with the Kanoodle staff who, in the last week, have begun to reject 99% of the search terms I have submitted to them and here's what they told me about their new guidelines:
"At present, our Relevancy guidelines state that search, directory and portal sites can only bid on generalized search terms such as "search," "find info," "links," etc. Our Relevancy guidelines are always evolving. This new policy is a part of our attempts to improve the quality of our listings as we grow and become more competitive in the pay per click industry.
Even though your site and the terms you previously submitted used to meet our guidelines, since the guidelines have changed recently, your listings no longer meet our guidelines."
Here's the new rule:
"Our policy for sites that just have links to other sites is: they can only bid on keyword terms that include words such as "search," "directory," "find," and "look for.""
It means that our music affiliate site, which just has music news and charts, then a link to online stores, can't even list under search terms like "european music", "entertainment" or "cds" - as well of hundreds of other terms! The site is called "cd paradise" and they won't even allow me to bid for that term!
Here was my final response to their new attitude:
"Dear XYZ,
Thank you for your comprehensive feedback. It is much appreciated.
I have working on the internet for seven years and have seen many companies become more and more self-defeating as they grow bigger (look at Overture). They become so big that they can't see the wood for the trees - and it is only much MUCH later that they realise what they did wrong.
Like I said, the search terms were submitted to other pay per click search engines and ALL of them accepted them. If Kanoodle don't, then that is your decision and perogative. All it means is we will not bother submitting search terms to Kanoodle in future if we can only bid on terms like "look for cds" (how many people type "look for cds" in a search engine?). You clearly don't care about small businesses/affiliate sites as you are no longer allowing them to bid on terms that they used to be able to and are therefore allowing big multinational corporations to dominate the net.
In the meanwhile, we will continue to spend thousands of dollars advertising our websites on pay per click search engines which are more welcoming of small businesses who do not have their own inventory.
Thank you."
I hope other ppcses don't develop such a policy, or else it is severely discriminatory against affiliate sites and will not allow us to compete with big business.
"At present, our Relevancy guidelines state that search, directory and portal sites can only bid on generalized search terms such as "search," "find info," "links," etc. Our Relevancy guidelines are always evolving. This new policy is a part of our attempts to improve the quality of our listings as we grow and become more competitive in the pay per click industry.
Even though your site and the terms you previously submitted used to meet our guidelines, since the guidelines have changed recently, your listings no longer meet our guidelines."
Here's the new rule:
"Our policy for sites that just have links to other sites is: they can only bid on keyword terms that include words such as "search," "directory," "find," and "look for.""
It means that our music affiliate site, which just has music news and charts, then a link to online stores, can't even list under search terms like "european music", "entertainment" or "cds" - as well of hundreds of other terms! The site is called "cd paradise" and they won't even allow me to bid for that term!
Here was my final response to their new attitude:
"Dear XYZ,
Thank you for your comprehensive feedback. It is much appreciated.
I have working on the internet for seven years and have seen many companies become more and more self-defeating as they grow bigger (look at Overture). They become so big that they can't see the wood for the trees - and it is only much MUCH later that they realise what they did wrong.
Like I said, the search terms were submitted to other pay per click search engines and ALL of them accepted them. If Kanoodle don't, then that is your decision and perogative. All it means is we will not bother submitting search terms to Kanoodle in future if we can only bid on terms like "look for cds" (how many people type "look for cds" in a search engine?). You clearly don't care about small businesses/affiliate sites as you are no longer allowing them to bid on terms that they used to be able to and are therefore allowing big multinational corporations to dominate the net.
In the meanwhile, we will continue to spend thousands of dollars advertising our websites on pay per click search engines which are more welcoming of small businesses who do not have their own inventory.
Thank you."
I hope other ppcses don't develop such a policy, or else it is severely discriminatory against affiliate sites and will not allow us to compete with big business.