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Next, if a site is grandfathered in and I wishto update it, does that mean I now have to pay per click?
Lastly, LookSmart said that I can use any title that I want under their new listing, but if my logo and site title reads "Blue Widgets", but I want my LookSmart title to read "Black, Blue, and Red Discount Widgets", does this mean they will accomodate my non-logoed title?
Is LookSmart not charging per click on sites that were submitted by a certain date and if so, does anyone know the date?
We have numerous listings from the first part of 2000 which are being "upgraded" automatically, meaning they are not grandfathered.
Whether or not the sites which were listed pre-PFI are to be "grandfathered" in is not clear to me.
Some of my listings have not been touched. If they would Grandfather in the sites already listed, .15 a click is not bad, especially for terms like Data Recovery.
We have never paid LS at all. And our listings are still there and in MSN. Remember that LS prided itself on being run by "librarians" and reviewing sites. Most, if not almost all sites included before payment came into it were included becuase "A librarian reviewed it and throught it useful for inclusion" - and they were usually informational rather than commercial sites.
If I am correct, this group of sites could therefore be characterised as more non-commercial and informational, but maybe also dated, if the domain is no longer worked on, sold, or has changed focus.
(Maybe i am mixing up LS and Northern Light on this "librarian" spin. If so, please feel free to contradict!)
If they remove ALL the sites that haven't paid, their SERP's would look pretty thin.
-Marty
They need the pre-pay listings to beef up the size (and maybe non-commercial content) of their database, as paid customers who are not "opting in" for PPC desert ship. These were added so long ago, and LS dont have the extent of contact details for them so they are a poor candidate for upgrading. Those who have paid to be in the database however immediately flag themselves as being willing to pay, and are GOOD candidates for upgrading.
As their database grows, they wont need these pre-paid listings so much, and will drop some or all of them, though some good non-commercial sites may still look good amongst all the commercial websites that by the nature of what they are selling can afford at least 15c per click.
LS then would be a totally commercial index, competing head on with Overture, and other smaller PPC's, and later on with yahoo I would guess. Its a crowded marketplace, with a limit to the number of customers, as people using search engines are not always looking to buy something. These would prefer Google which provides a great mix of non-commercially ranked SERPS with commercials as abonus (and clearly marked) should you wish to buy. LS's problem is that at the moment they have too much in the one basket (MSN). Overtures partners are more extensive.
My guess, and it's totally a guess, is that they will be forced to a pay-per-placement system like Overture and Ah-Ha within 4 months. I'll put it at October 1st - to get the holiday traffic money.
several of my clients are still showing up in the database, even though I recieved an e-mail from looksmart saying my "clicks" had been expended.
I dont understand how this is working. From what it looks like, all the sites we paid for previously are still in the search results and in the database, yet my clicks are "expired"
anyone care to elaborate??
mw
I think they have grandfathered sites that were listed before they started charging for anything.
We have Zeal listings, and listings that were added by LookSmart editors eons ago, for free, that we haven't heard boo about.
So I think the grandfathering thing is true for now.
I must say, it probably would be worth $45/month for 300 clicks (suggested amount, which is about right) but because of the outrageous way they have done this, I just can't bring myself to go for it.
