Looksmart Aberrations

[Cmore]

Something quite suspicious is happening with our listing at Looksmart. Having recently complained about our fallen positioning someone at Looksmart quite admirably fixed our site description, etc, and we subsequently received number one, top of page results on several of our keywords from MSN and other Looksmart affiliates. Within 3 days of this change, on Feb the 8 we've essentially been removed. We aren't even found for our own site's title. I have asked Looksmart to investigate this issue as this doesn't appear to be normal indexing practices that are occurring. I am quite concerned as one of our competitors recently spent 7 million in the our category.

Am I out of place thinking that there are potentially unfair practices occurring here?

[tennismaster]

We are in a similar situation.

Our Looksmart Listing appeared under about
10 or so keywords in the top 5 under `web directory`.
In the last week however, we are now found under one
keyword, no `web directory` results are appearing at
all for the other keywords.

If that was not bad enough, we appear to have
completely disappeared from the INKTOMI `web pages`
as well!

I am totally confused by MSN/INKTOMI rankings and
thank goodness for GOOGLE / YAHOO!

TM

[Cmore]

Did Looksmart fix your site description too? How quickly did your results drop off? As noted, ours dropped off within 3 days of Looksmart's changes. My primary concern is that our primary competitor, who is a notoriously agressive advertiser (this is the company I noted had recently spent 7 million plus in our category) is complaining about our visibility. How similar is your situation /circumstances?

In regard to your concern about MSN, I'm pretty sure that MSN is pay if you want to play(and I mean pay big - in our category, $7 million big). I totally agree with your: "thank goodness for GOOGLE / YAHOO!"

[rfgdxm1]

>I am quite concerned as one of our competitors recently spent 7 million in the our category.

7 million clams!? Dude, if your competitor paid *that* kind of money, there are Looksmart employees licking the dirt between their toes at this moment. 7 million smackers is enough to get whatever you want when in comes to SEs.

[cornwall]

LookSmart reported fourth quarter 2002 revenue of $31.3 million,

$7 million is therefore a big slice of L$ revenue. 15 or 16 accounts like that would give them their entire year's turnover

[Cmore]

To be specific about this, the 7 million went to MSN - not Looksmart but I assume these two work hand-in-hand.