Forum Moderators: phranque
Fair enough! Any fool can position someones site on notonehit.com (just ask me ;) ). The trick is to position a clients site on the most popular search engines for the correct key terms!
It should be simple then. Motivate to the client which engines are the most popular and from that, present a performance based quote!
But, I find that there is a large disparity between the search engines that I regard as key in comparison to the ones that the stats houses (Mediametrix, Top9, Statmarket e.t.c) list as important.
Inevitably, the client wants objective stats to draw conclusions from which means that they side with the stats houses and not you which hurts them in the long run!
For example, according to Top9, Google comes in at number 10 for visitors!
Visitors (x000)
1 yahoo.com 65,415
2 msn.com 46,739
3 lycos.com 22,863
4 netscape.com 18,816
5 nbci.com 17,982
6 excite.com 17,452
7 about.com 16,291
8 iwon.com 15,350
9 altavista.com 14,128
10 google.com 13,747
11 go.com 12,097
12 goto.com 11,247
13 looksmart.com 11,115
14 go2net.com 6,313
15 directhit.com 5,728
Who here reckons that Google is number 10 on the list?
So, Yahoo, with its portal features, web-based email etc, etc gets a lot of traffic that is not at all related to search. Even if you narrowed the stats to just show referrals from the portals, those stats would include anyone clicking a link in an email (web based).
There's a longer discussion of the metrics systems, their limitations and failings, over at SearchEngineWatch.com if you are interested.
Providing that explanation will alleviate some clients fears from thinking that you are pulling a fast one on them but the insecure ones start getting jittery!
Ill have a look at the search engine watch article and probably use it as some ammo. thanks!
Ritual,
We optimise clients sites in various industries and find Google to be top of the pops in all of them! Interested to see that Altavista is still on your list!
