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I'm of the opinion that those of us who don't want to pay the $2400 per month will find our sites listed at the end of the SERPS on MSN to punish us for not giving them any more $$ once we get our 100 free clicks in the next billing cycle.
What say ye?
Has anyone ponied up any more $$ once the site(s) were dropped? If so, where did the listing reappear.
LS decision was a very upfront and seemingly desperate decision, hence wait and see > from me
What about if we pay the ranson and get back in now? Where are the ransom sites going to be once they are reincluded?
The reason I ask is that at .15 per click I can more than cover my costs. Due to principal, I have not paid them any more $$...but principal doesn't pay the rent.
For them to artificialy play with the algorithm without disclosure wouldn't properly represent what advertisers are paying for and that wouldn't look ahhhh $mart.
The only thing they care about is the bottom dollar, screw the "directory" and the sites listed in it. You want relevance, go to Google for that.
I'd actually like to see if anyone has any ideas on where the removed listings will show up on MSN once the new "free clicks" are granted. Old positions? Bottom of the heap?
Well, one would hope that they realize that in order to remain viable, they have to offer listings. That would preclude them from simply dumping listings wholesale based on refusal or inability to pay the ransom(s).
However, LookSmart has demonstrated repeatedly -- using a bevy of business models -- that they are not necessarily savvy in their business decisions.
...but principal doesn't pay the rent.
Perhaps not; but then again...
First, I will not do business with people or companies who have shown themselves to be unethical. These people have shown themselves to be unethical, at least to my way of thinking. They offered a service -- for an exorbitant amount, I might add. Then they changed that service entirely without offering their customers any alternatives.
This time, they charged for inclusion into a directory and forced those customers to buy into a PPC model. What's to stop them from deciding they want to become a FFA next month? Or charge $2.50 per click? Or taking all the money and putting it on red in Vegas??!
(edited by: Laisha at 2:41 am (utc) on April 26, 2002)
If i activate my account & dont't increase my money other than the given free credits, will they charge to my credit card once it's done ?
First, figure in terms that are too general like "marketing" for example and other irrelevant searches for which the site may come up due to odd combinations of keywords in the listings. Any listing that turn up for popular one word (hence generally very un-targeted) search term will get killed on worthless per click trafic.
If your company has a well known brand name for which you would normally turn up anyway, you will have to cough up a ton of cash for that as well.
One company we work with gets about 5,000 - 10,000 searches per month for their brand. If we wanted to target incremental traffic (ie new customers) through topical queries, a "tax" of up to $1500.00 per month would be levied on the site due to charges for the brand name searches.
Lets say there are 10,000 brand name searches per month. It would take an awful lot of listings to get enough targeted searches to bring the cost per click down anywhere close to that .15 click price.
The "small business" option is not reasonable. They don't provide any tracking and don't seem to care that in order to spend more money, the tracking of the results is in some ways more important than the results themselves in some circles.
In the world of media, folks like to buy placements, pick their keywords, get specific positions, and track them precisely. It does not appear that LookSmart will faciliate this.
I paid them some additional funds on one email account which has a number of different sites. The sites are now back in, however,
Results are that are dot org site was put right back in to where it was, but all dot com sites suffered a serious minus 40-50 penalty. So it appears from this that your sites do suffer if you don't keep them current. I guess being in the mid-70's now I won't have to worry about too many clicks depleting the old account.
I'm referring to MSN as I don't cazre about where the sites go in L$.
I had added $75 to the account which should have been good for at least 3 or 4 days worth of traffic. However when I look at my account balance, all the clicks and funds were used up. There can be only one of two reasons for this:
1) The free clicks I received after my initial "free clicks" were actually counted when I added funds to the account. Let's say my clicks were used up on Tuesday yet my listing stayed on for another 5 days. Then the sites were dropped so I added more funds and two days later the sites were back in. However, all the funds were used up during the 5 days before being dropped so when I added funds, I was paying for clicks that I had already received.
or
2) There's a bot clicking away on all my listings.
Either way this isn't good at all.
Overture seriously addressed these problems and now they are of much smaller concern to customers. Reporting for example is very comprehensive over at Overture. Apart from the controversy of the way LS handled existing accounts (ie customers), a key point is that it is NOT easy to manage a PPC program. LS is showing all the signs of being forced to jump in too quick without have safeguards and systems tested and operative. The greatest beneficiaries are probably Overture, who by comparaison now look like white knights, and Yahoo who can now implement their own PPC system down the road which no matter how bad, again will probably look good against LS. LS has basically made the road much easier for Yahoo and has lowered the standard for treatment of existing clients in the Internet advertising arena as a whole.
