AltaVista Announces Listing Enhancements

[Kal]

Just got this email from InfoSpider :

New! Announcing AltaVista's Listing Enhancements Program! Add logos, icons, custom taglines, and text links to your URLs in the Express Inclusion Program.

* Logos: Create brand awareness and recognition by including your logo in your search results.

* Icons: Tell users what your company does and what your Web site offers with descriptive icons.

* Custom Taglines: Highlight sales, promotions, or any other important information with customizable taglines.

* Text Links: Drive traffic to the most important pages on your site using text links.

Some of the benefits of listing enhancements are:

* Listing enhancements visually distinguish your pages from others in the search results.

* Because your listing enhancements are refreshed frequently, you may modify your enhancements and have these changes reflected in the AltaVista results.

* Offers you unprecedented control over the look and feel of how your results appear in the AltaVista index.

For pricing and more information about listing enhancements, please visit
https://www.infospider.com/av/app/about_les

infoSpider Customer Support
support@infospider.com
http://www.infospider.com

[ihelpyou]

Oh my. They are pulling out everything from the hat. Bells and whistles now to boot. While Mr. Googly-ooglie keeps plugging away at it's old boring self.

Seems to me they should find the traffic before all of this? Also should keep indexing the free submitted sites otherwise they will lose 80 percent of all the sites out there cause they will not be in the index.

[Advisor]

LOL! Look at their example ad! They will allow you to say, "Best Prices on the Web" apparently (encourage you, I guess).

This is wonderful for SEO's and Webmasters. But will it enhance the user experience and give the most relevant results? Gee...I wonder...

Jill

[ihelpyou]

They will become a strictly pay to play search engine. Period. I see this coming all the way. Free listings are out the door. It will be nothing but a GoTo.com.

Relevancy? What's that?

[Mel]

Personally I'd like to see them update their index more often than once every six months before I go out and spend money to "enhance" my listing On AV. First get the listing current then try to wring money out of the webmasters. Looks like a serious case of Cart-before-the-horse to me.

[Kal]

Originally posted by webwhiz
This is wonderful for SEO's and Webmasters
Not for me. To me this raises real concerns as to the disintegrating quality of their engine. With the introduction of their spidering service, I had thought AV were going to change their track record and give real value to SEO's AND users - boy how wrong I was! That service has been a big disappointment lately and Mel has hit the nail on the head re their database updates.

This signals to me that they are looking cash quick and may be on the way out. They just lost a customer!

[Mel]

Hi Kal:

You have to appreciate Jills tongue-in-cheek humor before you can clearly understand Jills posts. Translated from Jill speak I think this means:

What the hell are these bloody idiots doing now?

[highman]

New! Announcing AltaVista's Listing Enhancements Program! Add logos, icons, custom taglines, and text links to your URLs in the Express Inclusion Program.


Should read:

New! Announcing AltaVista's URL Free Listing Program! Add your site, listings, and links to your URLs in the URL Free Listing Program.
Additions updated every 2 weeks !

Then I might even take a look at their so called search (lol) engine


WHAT ARE YOU DOING AV? :confused:

[Advisor]

:green:

[MazY]

Cool. You mean I can have an image with my listing and feel comfortable that it isn't going to change for nearly a year because that will be their next index!

Lucky, lucky, lucky....

Transcript of recorded conversation at AltaVista HQ:

Manager
Right gang, we're slipping behind in the SE wars. I want some out of the box thinking to see how we can be numero uno again. You know, like we were in.... erm, well, like we were once...

Head Geek
Erm, what about updating the index at times other than when the moon drops bacon over Tasmania and the Pacific dries up?

Manager
Right. Get out! If you are not going to come up with suggestions that will help our user base, you can just get out. Go on! Out!

Little Geek
I know! What about letting people to pay to place little stupid images next to their listing, if they can get one with us?

Manager
Now that's more like it! That's what people want! Whey Hey! My boy, you'll make a mananger yet! You just see if you don't. Right, now e-mail all our regular users and let them know of the changes.

Little Geek
All three-hundred of them boss?

Manager
Yup. Let 'em have it. Let 'em know that we're back fighting! In fact, add that to the advertising material - "Be found by three-hundred users per month!" That'll get them flooding in. Google, shmoogle.. we'll show those renegades what a search engine is meant to do. Ya can't build a search engine that just returns what the user is looking for. Where's the use in that? Todays business users want real useful stuff like little images.

Little Geek
<Returns to game of Solitaire> OK Boss. I'll do it immediately. Erm, can I have Head Geek's 486 now that he won't be needing it any more? These 5 'n' a quarter inch floppy disks are really starting to whir on my Sirius 386.

Manager
Go on then, lad. Treat yourself. You've shined like a beacon today. Fill your boots.

[newriver]

The enhancements will appear in your listings as they do in the example below:




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

Six Month Subscription Pricing
AltaVista's Listing Enhacements service is priced for a 6-month subscription period.

First URL Additional URLs
Logo $50.00 $36.00
Icon $25.00 $18.00
Custom Tagline $50.00 $36.00
Text links $25.00 $18.00

If you have already subscribed to services though infoSpider (such as AltaVista's Express Inclusion service), these prices will be prorated so that all of your services have the same renewal date.

[ihelpyou]

Yep. The little cutie images are an ADD-ON price to your regular express inclusion price. wow.

[ihelpyou]

So let me get this right. We know that just because you pay to be respidered and included, this does not mean you will necessarily be in the top 100 on your search term.... right?

If we assume that, why would one also pay for the cutie images if those same images and/or icons and/or cutie text links will even be seen by anyone anyway??

sheesh

[Advisor]

Awww...you guys are so mean! The images are just so cute. People are bound to flock to AV once they implement them. Dontcha think???

Doug, maybe you could send them your avatars and smilies! Now THAT would be a cool enhancement.

Jill

[highman]

MaZy ... lol

Those little images and icons are to make your listing look really cool and make all the surfers click on your link, just like this:


:hi: The best site on the web (http://#) :cheers:

see how effective it is, doug how much you gonna charge for each insertion of a smiley?

[Advisor]

Maybe they could make each listing a Flash banner ad for just a wee bit more money. Wheeeeeeeee!!!

I want one with flashing arrows pointing to my listing. Now that would be sooooo cool.

Oh wait...isn't this how FFA sites have looked for years? Oh well.

J

[Advisor]

Of course, you know, to be fair...someone ought to invite some AV reps to visit this thread so that they can better explain the virtues of this new program. Perhaps we are just confused and they can enlighten us.

Look what happened when Alan came in and better explained his white paper...

Jill

[ihelpyou]

Very true Jill. At least Infospider should come in and explain this. Seems to me there was this kind of confusion when AV came out with the PFI in the first place?

My post and questions above still stand.

[highman]

lol... I can just see the serps now full of flashing animated gifs and pointy arrows


Why is so hard for them to see that what everyone wants is a fresh relevant index is that so hard for an SE


Bye Bye AV, it was nice knowing you a few years back

[ihelpyou]

ya know, it's like they are TRYING to be the exact opposite of Google. I cannot figure out why they think this tactic will work? Going up against Google is a huge problem and one they will never win at.

I use to love AV, but no way do I wish to see hyped up ads and blatant advertising with images/icons/smilies/linkys, etc in search results. Would have to say, no one else does either. Where did they get their marketing firm from?

[Advisor]

Why is so hard for them to see that what everyone wants is a fresh relevant index is that so hard for an SE Simple. It's hard to find a way to make money out of that.

J

[ihelpyou]

Very true, but it is sooo hard to go about it that way as they are simply putting "the cart before the horse".

This does not reap of good news for AV. I am very sad.

[highman]

But surely you try to make money once you have relevant fresh results and the resulting traffic, not before

[MazY]

Originally posted by webwhiz

Look what happened when Alan came in and better explained his white paper...

Jill

Ah yes, but I do believe Alan was defending something current, not an also-ran.

AV's latest method is akin to us rejecting Alan's paper, him running off to scribble some pretty pictures on it and then expecting it to be accepted on those terms. Even though the content may well still be crap!

Even if I take the new AV model seriously for a moment, and I am struglling to do so I confess, let's get it into a business perspective.

At the very start it may seem novel and who knows the odd one or two listings that offer something different may well attract an extra click or two. But then, once most take it up (I assume that is what AV wants, or else I am really perplexed.) it will just seem like more clutter on the page of listings.

Hmm. Someone pass me the dictionary, I need to look up "illogical".

[MazY]

Originally posted by highman
But surely you try to make money once you have relevant fresh results and the resulting traffic, not before

Highman..

You and your radical business concepts!

[Advisor]

I for one would have given Alan's doodlings, a fair chance! ;)

J

[ihelpyou]

LOL

[ihelpyou]

hey, I wonder how this board software knows as to which post to post first when the times posted are exactly the same times posted on each posted post? :)






I guess in the posted times above which were posted at the exact same time, girls should come before boys....... as it should be.

[Kal]

Well the only type of companies that I can see taking up this service are bound to be porn and spam sites. I am chuckling to myself as I picture the type of company "logos" that they will be expecting AV to list next to their sites! :barf+:

Very professional!

[ihelpyou]

Yea, they sure will try.

This seems to me to be the beginning of the end. I sure hope not as AV was always a favorite of mine up until the last year. I cannot believe they are starting this before the get their database up to date and relevant. Does not make any sense at all.

[MazY]

Don't get me wrong, there is nobody would like AV to succeed more than I. If for no other reason than to stop Google claiming the monopoly on the search engine market. A scenario which I fear we are dangerously close to already.

It will not be much fun being an SEO if there is only one search engine that matters to everyone. Everyone will clamber for that one and everyone's job gets that little bit harder.

I still stand by my prediction that Google will ultimately do what they all do - get a huge user base that pretty much depends on it for their business then boom - start hitting with the charges. An old business model but still one of the most successful. Get 'em hooked, reel 'em in then net 'em. Works every time.

I just can't help thinking that AV's pretty pictures isn't really giving the user what they need and is not a step in the right direction. Now had they said we are going to work on relevancy, indexing and so forth, that would have been something to get excited about. If anyone is running with the gauntlet at the moment, I would say it is either FAST or Lycos.

They still may not be producing the traffic that we would all like but they are moving in the right direction. Something which I think that Lycos are acutely aware of lately as they have increased their UK television advertising again.

[JuniorHarris]

Going to be tough for AV to succeed if they continue to focus on abstract ideas without prioritizing the most important aspects first. They need to worry first about keeping the index current and building traffic, not bells and whistles. I remember av.uk had these icons at one time, it made for a pretty busy and ugly display if I recall.

Also last year at this time AV was distracted with working on several search portals, integrating paid listings, and several other "new" features. It appeared during this time that they had parked scooter, which did not index for months and allowed the index to stale. Resulting in many loyal users jumping ship and finding a new favorite engine to use.

Sounds like they may be hammering the last nail into the coffin themselves!~

[Kal]

Well my guess is that they DO recognise the need for improving the index, but that they need funds in order to allocate time and resources to do so.

Either that or they just need funds to keep afloat and have implemented this scrap book method as a last ditch attempt to raise a quick buck?

Anyway, back in August, WPG posted an interview between Fredrick Marckini and AltaVista. It's here : http://www.webposition.com/mp-0801.htm

Makes for interesting reading in light of current events. It also contains the following quote from AV :

["The level and depth of how far the spider will crawl a particular Web site varies from time to time."]

Could this be the world's biggest understatement?

;)

[markymark]

AV have a big problem. They are still one of the most recognisable brands on the web, but no one uses their services. Even with all the pretty pictures, paid inclusion and bells and whistles, this is not going to change. Updating more often and increasing the relevancy of their index ? Nope, that won't do it either.

How would people know ? We would as SEOs, sure, but Joe Surfer who switched to Google and is getting relevant results (almost) every time is not going to even know that AV's results have become more relevant. And if they do, they won't care.

A Google monopoly ? Hmm...it seems to be happening, but I still get more referrals for clients through Yahoo and MSN on average. Plus Lycos and Ask in the UK. Shame those recent Lycos ads didn't mention searching, isn't it.