AV. Europe: We will stop...

[heini]

"We will stop with the local databases because they are too time consuming. The 22 countries will be offered results from the worldwide database..."
Full scandalous story posted here [webmasterworld.com]

Sorry for double posting, but this should interest all European members who over the last months have watched AV.

[Brett_Tabke]

Were there ever any provisions in alta's pay-for-play plan that included any specifics about Euro outlets?

[heini]

I guess all the people who actually paid them are just too ashamed now to speak up... :)
I didnīt, so I canīt tell.

[rcjordan]

I'd venture that the volume of subscribers, small business owners, small web-hanger shops, etc., don't know that their money went for nothing. We cover that kind of risk here (recalling recent warnings about Looksmart's stock price and red ink), but for every one of us there are thousands that just see the sign-up page and think "AV is big, surely this is a good investment."

[seth_wilde]

The worldwide database was first introduced with the pay-for-play plan, so I don't see how anyone got ripped off..... If anything having your sites seen worldwide rather than in just one country should bring you a better value. (not that I'm endorsing AV's pfp, infact I haven't used it myself)

[heini]

Seth_wilde imagine having a site in dutch you wouldnīt be too happy to have paid for inclusion. It was never really a question of either being included in the local db or the main db. All local AVs had their own submit option. It lead to inclusion in the local db.
Some months ago this submit option was gone. No explanation whatsoever from AV.
Members here in the European forums have repeatedly stated they did not know where they were submitting to anyway. Fact is, as I have mentioned a few times here that AV.com picked up my submitted pages, which happen to be in german language. AV.de did not. Actually they got rid of pages that had already been indexed by the german db.
Serps delivered by AV.de grew even worse if thats possible.
Okay, thatīs the the free submit. To my knowledge the Express submit option has all the time been offered, or merely urged on webmasters. It has never been mentioned that this payed submission would effectively exclude you from the local db.

[seth_wilde]

"To my knowledge the Express submit option has all the time been offered"

The pay-for-spidering plan just started at the beginning of July (which was the first we heard of the global database). AV has offered paid submissions to Looksmart for some time, but that never meant that you were included in AV's database.

I think the real issue here is that AV is stalling the conversion to the global database. If they aren't going to update the local databases then they shouldn't use them by defualt. They need to just get their @ss in gear and offer the global database to everyone by default.

[heini]

wow, seems like a year ago, but you are right, seth: it was end of june, when we first speculated [webmasterworld.com] on a merger, and a few days later, when that PFP plan was outrolled. Also there is no room for any legal actions since AV did not say that buyers of Express Submissions would be included in a local db. Itīs more to the point of what rcjordan says above. At least they should have warned people expressively that Express submission would not be searchable from the local db. That means a European site owner spent money on being excluded from the vast majority of searches in his country. This behaviour at least comes close to a rip-off.
Now AV say it will take them some more weeks to complete the merger.
"Express submit": paid for in July, delivered in September?

Not to mention the fact that AV never informed people that sites submited to local AV sites would not show up there. They have not updated their local dbs since April!
Apart from everything else, what does that do to AVs performance on the European searchengine market, with Fast and Google rushing in?

<added>I did like the results of the latest updates / algo changes(?) in AV.com and yes, itīs about time to bury AV.de having lately given you the worst search experiences I ever had with a major</added