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A hot topic is, of course, MSN building its own "Search" product, presumably to be able to drop Yahoo!-owned Overture and Inktomi. Of course, they'll probably also develop their own PPC service or buy a 2nd-tier one like FindWhat.
This strategy, of course, makes sense from the MSN perspective, but LookSmart is a "neutral" outsourcing solution...I'm wondering what the outcome of this will be? i.e. - will L$ get axed or stay put?
I've often wondered where LookSmart would be without MSN (my guess is R.I.P.) and, further, WHY in the world MSN would want to use LookSmart to power their results.
Does anyone else have any thoughts on this? It seems possible that MSN would launch its own search product in time to replace LookSmart in December 2003 or January 2004.
As a note, we use LookSmart pretty extensively to get into MSN, but the new pricing change (5,000 visitors per month at $.15, then subject to "industry" rates for additional traffic) is unfortunate. In the short term, the potential move of MSN away from LookSmart would hurt us, but not for long.
Anyone have any thoughts on the fate of LookSmart?
I heard one SEO/webmaster wish for LookSmart to "die a quick death" in the aftermath of the "new" search engine landscape, e.g. - Yahoo! vs. Googlve vs. a lagging MSN.
I think I may concur with him.
~Canton
Integrating LS into MSN makes the most sense.
<edit for spelling>
[edited by: martinibuster at 8:45 pm (utc) on July 23, 2003]
Obviously LookSmart is a directory and MSN is building an engine, but in essence the Directory results from LookSmart are the "bulk" of what MSN uses as search results. Since a specific algorithm is applied to those directory results and they are displayed in a SERP format, the LookSmart "directory" is a de facto search engine for MSN.
Also, I think most will agree with me that the majority of their LookSmart-driven MSN traffic comes NOT from people drilling down through the LookSmart-provided MSN directory, but raher, from MSN searches.
That said, I can't imagine MSN would try to use LookSmart's results when their competitor, Yahoo!, ditched (almost entirely) their own (IMHO - better than L$) directory in favor of pure "search" via Google and, presumably, Inktomi in the near future.
LookSmart has a great directory?
Maybe, but that's as open for debate as the ever-popular "Microsoft and Bill Gates are evil" statement.
Anyone else want to weigh in on this, or is LookSmart currently a dead issue with Google dominating the world?
~Canton
It seems that one problem is that Microsoft doesn't like to buy public companies. They've acquired many competitors over the years, but it seems that they buy companies at an early stage before they go public. (I admit I haven't followed their business strategy too closely, so if someone wants to correct that statement, please feel free to do so.)
Looksmart's current market cap is $400 million with no debt. Microsoft has that much lying around under their seat cushions, but can they overcome their aversion to buying public companies? Especially companies that may be overvalued anyway. Maybe they should just work out a long-term contract where MSN gets to use Looksmart as its directory (like Yahoo! with its directory) and an option to buy the directory if Looksmart declares bankruptcy. But, yeah, I agree that the new and improved MSN should have a directory analogous to Yahoo's.
So it wouldn't surprise me if MSN would go on with Looksmart, even if it completely rolls out its own search engine. OR perhaps it would just chop off its own plans & be content with Wisenut/Grub/Looksmart stuff after purchasing it.
As far as the quality of looksmart is concerned, I find it as the best directory on the web. Check out the depth of the directory, though I agree that its still weak in certain areas but its much more advanced than other directories.
Lots of exciting news ahead!
In Googles case, they have been able to improve the relevancy of the algo faster than the public has been able to catch on to what that algo is. What i am saying is that the results have gotten better over the years, and less people have been able to spam these results than they used to.
In the early days of Google (and the early days of most search engines) people filled h1 tags with keywords, crosslinked domains, all the things that google now penalizes for. It is getting harder and harder (if not impossible) to trick googles algo.
So, if search engines are able to improve relevancy faster than webmasters are able to find workarounds to spam the SE, could it mean the demise of hand edited directories?
Could a point be reached that SE's are able to replicate the relevancy based on page content of sites to that of a hand edited directory? I know it is easy to say people will always do it better, but i think that statement is being quite ignorant to the potential for search engine algos. Humans have bias, no matter how much any of us will deny it.
I certainly think this point can be reached, and i also think we are not to far off from reaching it.
Just imagine a SE that was able to crawl and index pages by using criteria that is so precise it looks as if a human had created the whole directory, while it is really the work of machines. If the current trend (and the trend for the past several years) remains the same (algos will outpace the public being able to find loopholes), SE's are on target to provide listings similar to what we call a human edited directory today, without the personal bias and waiting times.
I know many fans of directories will seek blood for this, but it is MHO.
