jholcomb - 4:53 pm on Mar 24, 2005 (gmt 0)

I wanted to chime in here to clear a few things up. Many of you know me from my time at Kanoodle as I’ve attended some of the WebmasterWorld shows. I’ve had the pleasure of having a few beers with many of you. I'm now SVP of Marketing with BlowSearch.

First up, Brett, thanks for the mention. We’re coming to WebmasterWorld New Orleans and as always I’m sure it’ll be a great experience. Out of all the shows I have attended yours is by far the most informative and fun. I get great feedback from webmasters every time I attend.

The Competitor IP blocking tool was implemented to allow advertisers to protect themselves from malicious clicks. For those that are proactive in researching where traffic is coming from, like myself (yes I am an advertiser and webmaster too), this is invaluable in my book. That's the reason we have it available.

BlowSearch does indeed carefully screen the quality of our search distribution partners on a real time basis. We can automatically detect and block proxies and other blatantly criminal abuses of our system.

On that note, I'll let everyone at WebmasterWorld in on a little secret. We're developing a product for advertisers that will change the industry completely. It will undergo testing over the next month. If we are successful in our attempts it will be absolutely HUGE news. Brett, I'll be getting you advance notice so you can let everyone know. This new feature will undergo extensive third party testing before we make an official announcement as to what exactly we have on the table. Keep your ears peeled. You’re really going to like this!

Now on to the issue of our traffic volume figures. BlowSearch’s own internet properties process over 30 million searches per month. This is accumulated between our own web sites and search based applications like the BlowSearch Secured Instant Messenger, the toolbar, etc. When added to the numbers from our network of distribution partners our search volume increases to over one billion search queries per month. We have grown exponentially over the last few months. We’re adding servers left and right around here to meet the demand for our search results.

We’re a little different than most other middle market engines. Most of the middle market engines don’t have any of their own users. We all know that no one goes to FindWhat.com, Enhance.com, or other mid tier engines to do actual searches. Those engines get their traffic from re-distribution of their XML feeds. BlowSearch actually attracts a lot of users with our web site. We have larger base of actual searchers and users than any other middle market engine, sans the Jeeves and InfoSpace properties.

Since the launch of our Instant Messenger product our user retention is hitting an all time high. We’re giving users a reason to use BlowSearch and retaining them. IM and other tools keep them coming back for more. We’re even looking at re-launching BlowSearch.com with a new look and feel. More in the direction of a search “vortal” with other free and subscription based services to bring in dedicated users.

Our search partner network consists of other middle market engines. This includes the network of InfoSpace properties. Our advertisers paid listings are not currently displayed by our search affiliates. They only appear on the partners of the AdOn network. We allow complete Traffic Source Selection over this network. We give you full and complete control to manage our traffic sources as you see fit. You can cherry pick your traffic sources from BlowSearch at will. FYI, the only traffic source which you cannot “opt out” of is the Infospace network. We believe that no advertiser would want to opt out of that traffic source. If I am wrong please say so and we'll consider adding it.

When you add traffic source selection to ROI tracking guess what happens? It becomes a powerful tool for increasing ROI. You can see exactly what partners on our network work for you and which ones don’t. ROI is different for every campaign so it must be customizable. Some web sites work better with some traffic sources than others will. Does allowing our advertisers to block traffic reduce our revenue? Absolutely, but we don’t care. Our only concern is that you get good ROI and stay on board with us as an advertiser. You might get less traffic as a result of blocking some sources but at least the ROI will be where you want it to be. That is the most important thing.

Shaq and others specifically asked me for Traffic Source Selection at the Orlando and London WebmasterWorld shows. I was at Kanoodle at that point but the idea stuck with me and I heard you. Expect more of that from BlowSearch going forward. We can’t make 100% of the people happy 100% of the time but we do hear you.

If we can give you the tools you have asked for as a community then I’m proud of what we are doing here. The smaller engines can cater to users better. It’s one of the reasons I decided to work for BlowSearch. I had talks with majors in the industry after leaving Kanoodle. I chose BlowSearch solely based on the commitment they showed to the user experience and the advertisers ultimate satisfaction. I’ve seen enough in this industry to know the lowdown. I made a personal choice to make PPC advertising better by going somewhere I could have an impact to do so. I’m a webmaster and site owner first and a search engine executive second. Anyone who reads my blog will find that to be readily apparent. I tell it like it is and I don’t fear becoming a “Mark Jen”. I know enough about this industry and I have enough contacts that I could launch a brand new engine tomorrow. I have no fear and the team at BlowSearch knows it. That’s why they wanted me on board.

Most of you guys are very experienced web marketers that don’t like B.S. from the engines you work with. We’ve opened the door for you to check us out now. Taking our PPC program out of BETA is the first step. We have a lot of very happy advertisers right now and I’ve got plenty of testimonials that tell me so. We’re doing the right thing in this space and we’ll continue to do so. There is a lot more ahead for BlowSearch.

Put us through the paces and get me your feedback. My door is always open for constructive critics of what we’re doing here at BlowSearch.

Lastly I’d like to clear up the misunderstanding on our search results themselves. We are an InfoSpace partner and we do display their listings on BlowSearch. However we incorporate result from over 24 different engines in our results. We do not simply return InfoSpace listings. We have our own technology and algorithm that processes our data and does things like remove dupes, re-scores relevancy, and more. See for yourself:

[msxml.blowsearch.com...]
[dogpile.com...]

The listings don’t match. There’s a reason for that. We do indeed have our own backend meta technology.

Hope I’ve helped to clear up a few things and thanks for bearing with me on the length of my post. I wanted to make sure I addressed everything that has been brought up so far and added my own personal thoughts to the mix.

Joe Holcomb
SVP of Marketing
BlowSearch