LookSmart and MSN and listing

what is our solution for listing with msn

[lindavh]

I too, like the threads on LookSmart, purchased the $299 contract and had the terms changed to the new "Small Business" pay-per-click option. I am confused as to the post about having to pay an additional $15 with the already $15 free option for 100 clicks, totaling a minimum requirement of $30.00. I did not see this in the contract, so if anyone knows for sure, please inform us of where it states that our credit cards will be charged a monthly fee of $15.
My other concern that I would like to address here, is the alternate options we have in order to be placed on MSN's Search Engine. When the company INK. was mentioned, are you referring to Inktomi? Please elaborate on this.
I would like some guidance on submitting to MSN without having to go the LookSmart route. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Thanks to all for your outrage with LookSmarts new policy...and MSN...they surely have a hand in this game....

[Marcia]

Welcome to the board, Linda. I've never gotten into the Looksmart thing, but yes, when we're referring to INK it's Inktomi, who provide bottom-feed results for MSN after the paid listings, and has for AOL, which is changing very soon to Google.

With MSN it's been their featured listings, followed by Overture PPC, then Looksmart, and after that, the Inktomi listings. So it's been done selectively by some, checking to see which search terms have a lot of LS listings, meaning the Inktomi results will be buried pages later, and finding alternate search phrases with only a few LS listings, so that the Inktomi pages would have some chance of getting decent visibility. Now that LS listings are less in number in certain categories, the possibilities may be wider.

So that's basically the way to get some benefit without going the PPC route for MSN. For Inktomi you take your chances with getting in, or you pay per page through on of their pay-for-inclusion partners. There are several, including Verisign, Positiontech and ineedhits.com

[cjtripnewton]

Lindavh, you can become a zealot and add your site to the zeal directory. It will then show up through LookSmart and MSN. Just go to [zeal.com,...] read the guidelines, take the quiz, and be on your way.

[lindavh]

Thanks cjtripnewton!
Don't you have to be a non-commercial site, or atleast have material listed on your site that is non-commercial and direct to that particular page? That was my understanding with submitting to zeal but I may be misinformed. ???

[brotherhood of LAN]

lindav, thats correct.

Though, you may want to become a zealot to link to non-commercial sites that link to you? :) I dunno if thats against the grain in regards to their system......I just asked one of the editors in there to put my site in for me

[confused2ru]

Not an easy choice to be sure, but here are some ideas.

First of all I would make sure that I was where I wanted to be on Google (especially in light of their AOL contract) before I worried about MSN traffic.

Then as regards MSN traffic:

First of all your strategy will depend on the keywords you need to be found for, their popularity and how much a visitor is worth to you.

Alternative 1. If you have keywords that you can offord on Overture (they are going to cost more than $0.15 per click if they are to show up on MSN) this is the fastest way to get to the top of the results.

Alernative 2. Do as Marcia suggested, try to get a good ranking on Ink results and hope that a number 4 or 5 ranking will get enough traffic to be worthwhile.

Alternative 3. You get 100 free clicks per month from Looksmart and you have no control over how or where they are used. You do not have to pay anything to get these 100 free clicks but you do have to activate you Looksmart account and be sure to set your click limit to 100 clicks if you do not wnat to be charged for clicks.

Next remember that due to Looksmarts screwy scheme their directory results may vary according to the time of the month. There will be more competition at the beginning of the month than at the end, so for some keywords it might be worthwhile to go in towards the end of the month and buy some clicks, but make sure that you set your click limit back to 100 at the beginning of the next LS billing period (not at the first of the month)

[suncell]

Can someone shed some light on this area of my problem with looksmart and MSN. I'm apart of looksmart directory but when my 100 Free .. clicks were used up, I added more funds to raise my total clicks to 200. However my listing at this point will only show on looksmart as a featured listing and not in the directory or MSN's results for the looksmart directory??

[wolfy]

I was listed in Looksmart directory paying the fee and now they sent me an email saying "your monthly amount of clicks has reached ... you must add ...$ to your account", the problem is that I've never activated my account and they did it automatically, is it possible??

and more :

have you noticed something strange in MSN search results? I mean I can't understand how does it list results, it seems web directory sites comes from Looksmart and Zeal but some of them has a redirect to [redirect-west.inktomi.com...]

and web pages should come from Inktomi right? Unfortunately I noticed that something changed in those results too from the introduction of Looksmart PPC program, in fact I was listed inside in first page both for directory sites and web pages but now only third page for web results.
Did anyone experienced the same problems?