What's GoTo UpTo

[rcjordan]

Has GoTo suddenly gotten religion? Has lack of relevancy made them fear for their SE soul? As Chris points out in [webmasterworld.com] this new move -if applied- will nuke a vast number of affiliate sites.

[Drastic]

Yes, very interesting indeed. Just got my copy in the inbox.

Luckily, I don't rely heavily on goto, just supplementary. I haven't added any bids since the min. bid increase. (I work with low EPVs)

I wonder what they're up to, and why they're doing this. Are merchants not liking their biz names being listed by affiliates? Hmmmm...

[Travoli]

I am wondering if this is related to their little feedback icon in the lower right corner (OpinionLab), which gives them feedback on search results relevancy. Maybe a bunch of poor relevancy ratings by users has prompted this action?

[rcjordan]

>Maybe a bunch of poor relevancy ratings by users has prompted this action?
>
Just a guess, but I think the users have already started to tune out GoTo on the partner sites and the partners are giving them heavy-duty feedback. I know that Dogpile has slowly returned to my referral list.

[minnapple]

Sounds like the "partners" are starting to see a decrease in revenues and they are responding to that.

From a advertisers point of view, I have seen the referals from the recognizable partners decrease and and an increase of referals from - in my opinion "questionable" partners.

I have posted my concerns of this in the "Pay for Clicks" section. And I have questioned GoTo on this.

However to date they have not addressed my concerns to my satisfaction.

As an advertisor I wish they would review the relevancy of some of their newer "parnters".

This month I will marginally (45%) reduce my GoTo spending on my client sites and redirect it to other programs and efforts.

As they slip in quality referals so will my advertsing dollars.

Slippery slope guys.