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I'm gonna go with Looksmart (I know about their crappy reputation)because my understanding is they feed their results to MSN, which appear higher up the stack than Inktomi. Thats a big benefit in my book.
Also, I can control cost and don't have to pay 80 cents a click on Google, plus Overture doesn't really have the reach for small bidders like myself.
I ask you, my peers, why I shouldn't do this. Anybody want to talk me out of it with a better PPC solution.
I appreciate your time.
Keep on SEO
Craig
It's a short term strategy, for people who need quick exposure.
Another option that you can go with it to target secondary search terms within MSN and INK. For example:
- The keyword "widgets" is highly searched for
- The keywords "blue widgets" and "red widgets" are searched for less frequently
Within MSN Search, the Looksmart results will most likely appear on top for the "widgets" search, but in many cases not in the "blue widgets" and "red widgets" searches. It is just a matter of finding the right keywords to target.
Save your money.
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This also ties in with the thought by many that it is better to rank #1 for 100 secondary keywords than it is to rank #1 for 1 primary keyword.
I think you are going to find several different opinions in here:
Type A: Those who were burned and vowed out of principle never to give them another penny.
Type B: Those who were burned but have gotten over it. They need the traffic and have reluctantly moved over to the new plan. Sometimes the bottom line speaks louder than your principles.
Type C: Those who came in after the switch and think $0.15 per click is a steal. Way cheaper than Overture!
I recently moved from Group A to Group B (maybe Group A-). After months of whining and hoping for L$ to go bankrupt, I realized INK alone was not going to drive much traffic from MSN. I have not adjusted the "free clicks" on all of my sites, (for some it is too cost prohibitive) but I find myself slowly raising the click limit site by site, while still hoping L$ will go bankrupt :)
You KNOW what they did last time. Do you believe that they are somehow reformed, and that they would not take you again if they could think of another dirty little scheme?
I suggest that you know that they would.
Any expenditure with them therefore can surely only be viewed as speculation and a significant gamble.
Consider this: If you have played cards with someone for money and they have blatantly cheated, would you continue to play? Would you open a new game with them knowing that they had the deck in their hands?
I did use their $199.00 per year service with great results.
I consider myself duly warned, and can only hope LS has fixed what was broken in their business practices. If not, I'll be the firt to post my experience here, and nothing spreads faster than bad Search Engine ethics among us SEO's and our customers.
Craig
I have a question though, does the looklistings also get you into the zeal and looksmart directory? If so, any info about increasing pagerank, like being included in dmoz and Y! does?
Either way, I'm inclined to at least put a couple of hundred into this newer model and see what it brings. Hearing everyone complain about being burned by them does make me concerned, but I still have a family to feed, and being on page 5 won't help that. This almost reminds me of how I feel about getting ripped off purchasing 10 RealNames a month before they went under. I got a nice email about their demise and info that I would be recieving a pro-rated refund. Anyone ever heard back about that?
I have a question though, does the looklistings also get you into the zeal and looksmart directory?
It gets you into the LookSmart directory, but not Zeal.
Zeal, which is for (what they call) non-commercial sites, feeds LookSmart, not the other way around.
...and Jesus Christ died for nothing, I suppose. Little pictures have big ears, don't stop to count the years. Sad songs never play to long on broken radios. hmmmhmmmmhmmmmhmmmm
I'll give it (looklistings) a shot, but will keep my ear to the ground to be ready to pull out at the first sign of trouble.
Thanks for the info all.
We are getting highly targeted traffic, for a new lead generator site, but only about 10 uniques a day. We are only on LS, MSN, and CNET, but will be fed to
AV, and others.
So far I very pleased although it remains to be seen if there billing problems are fixed.
I noticed they don't provide real time stats, and my hitslink tracker
numbers don't seem to match up with LS calculations on clicks.
For the money, I don't think there is a better model out there.
Craig
It gets you into the LookSmart directory, but not Zeal.
Zeal, which is for (what they call) non-commercial sites, feeds LookSmart, not the other way around.
I could be mistaken but doesn't every commercial and non commercial site that shows up in LookSmart and MSN (except those from Ink) get put in Zeal first? All the data is then pulled from Zeal.
If you want to get traffic from LookSmart, ya gotta do your homework before submitting. See how many directory results come up in MSN before you submit. If there are lots, the prime keyword(s) probabaly need to be in the title to show up. If not, it takes an exact match in the description.
I'm convinced there is human tinkering with the top MSN results, older free listings get a boost, or something else is at work. It's not a straight algo based on the listing or even those relevancy keywords.
Non-commercial sites as per the guidelines would seem to get les favorable listings than the piad sites and "big business" listings.
Deep links to commercial sites are supposed to have:
Title: Page Title - Site Name (keyword keyword keyword - Site name)
Non-commercial sites are now listed as:
Title Site Name - Page Title (site name - keyword keyowrd keyword)
Assuming keywords that when appear earlier in the title, the listing ranks higher for them, commercial sites get better rankings.
I don't know how they counts click but they are anywhere up to 2x+ what traffic logs typically record and they just send out form letters when asked about it.
I just signed up for the small business listings to see how it works. The keywords all have at least 5 pages of looksmart directory results.
I have a pretty successfull website with a decent conversion rate going just through my normal PI INK and good google ranking.
My terms are $2-$3 each on overture, which I got out of long ago, I just have a few non-popular terms left. I abandon ADwords a while back as well. I am hoping to find an affordable way to drive traffic.
Anyone have any experience with the $2,500 a month looksmart plan?
just wondering what the advatages are there...
Anyone have any experience with the $2,500 a month looksmart plan?
just wondering what the advatages are there...
We got a few proposals before the switch to PPC and they came in at around $7500.00 per month, not $2500. CPC was around .50+/click and there was a review fee for each URL of up to $100.00, maybe $150.00.
I suspect prices have dropped since then. It wouldn't hurt to ask them to give you a scope (proposal).
Try looking at their stock's performance since they started operation. This should tell you a little bit.
Second. Search around for some other threads. There is no shortage of rants about Looksmart.
Third. Ask these questions:
How can I validate the clicks that come from Looksmart?
Where is a good example of someone who TRULY LOVES using LookSmart?
...so I'm not a LookSmart fan.
Any idea on how to get the top sponsored listing on MSN, is this part of the Looklisting for larger advertisers?
Does anyone know how to get the Featured Sites listing on MSN, that shows above the 3 sponsored listings from overture.
I clicked on the "about" link next to it and it explains that Featured listings can be chosen by msn staff, or as paid advertisements. I am mostly interested in finding out what the paid advertising package is, or where to find that information.
Any info would be helpful.
Thanks.
