Espotting France - new partners?

[heini]

Just took a look over at what's happening at Espotting France, saw some new partners:
club-internet.fr
nomade.tiscali.fr
copernic.com/fr
wooaza.com
m6net.fr
compaqnet.fr
moonmist.info

Did I get that right? Any french members with more info?

[louponne]

Here's what they say :

nos trois premiers résultats apparaissent sur Lycos et ClubInternet/Looksmart, tandis que nos deux premiers résultats apparaissent sur Nomade/Tiscali et sur AltaVista (plus les deux résultats suivants en bas de la page).

I just checked, and yes, they are showing up.

Two comments thus far :

1. competition is up (when I first tried an account, there was nobody else around :)

2. results are practically nil. *Very* few clicks, especially when compared to similar accounts on English language overture.

[heini]

>results are practically nil. *Very* few clicks

How come? Do you think sponsored links are less likely being clicked or does nobody use those portals/engines anyway?

[louponne]

I'm really not sure, heini. I've been tweaking various things - and nothing seems to improve the click numbers. I think part of it may simply be that the French tend to use directories more than search engines. I tried an ad campaign on Google recently, and though I got more click-throughs than with e-spotting, there still wasn't much.

[heini]

So those search engines/portals mentioned above all draw from Nomade, right? It's basically one deal spreading out to nomades partners?

What about Copernic - they claim having 19 Mill. users?

[louponne]

> So those search engines/portals mentioned above all draw from Nomade, right?

Well, no, it's a little more complicated. I'm not sure where you got your list.

club-internet.fr
nomade.tiscali.fr

These two belong to Tiscali. Tiscali has bought up a number of providers in France now, and is emerging as the main competitor of Wanadoo, French telecom's internet service.

copernic.com/fr

The well known software that works off of a number of SE. I've never seen a click from the site. Those 19M users must be for their software.

wooaza.com

A site where you can download celphone crap. No SE value at all. It does have a small search box, results are inktomi/e-spotting.

m6net.fr

Portal of one of the French television stations. Small search box. Results from nomade.fr

compaqnet.fr

Seems to be a copy of nomade.fr

moonmist.info

meta-SE - I'd never heard of it before your mentioning.

I can't report on e-spotting results today because they seem to have pulled down my campaign :-(

[heini]

Thanks for sorting that out Louponne. Got the list from abondance.com.

[louponne]

unfortunately, abondance.com isn't all that reliable -

My campaign is back up, and bringing in *one* click per day! yippeeee.

[heini]

So Espotting is up at Yahoo.fr now - same way of sorting serps a s is on Yahoo.de.

Try this search [fr.search.yahoo.com...]

[louponne]

Right - let's see if that brings in any results.

On the PPC thread, I noticed that Overture is supposedly showing up on aol.fr - I can't see where, and I can't see where Overture is offering this??

Another question - where is aol.fr getting its directory??

[carlwright]

We've started running Espottings French and German results (may have been a little premature since we still haven't received the translation of the site!).

First impression though is that although we do have quite a sizeable French and German usage, most of these users still prefer to search through International engines, rather than localised versions, therefore, it's going to be a little more complicated to get regionalised PPC results in front of them. I think Yahoo have the right idea though, by targeting the result source to a users country rather than the particular yahoo domain they happen to be using.

[heini]

>most of these users still prefer to search through International engines, rather than localised versions

I find that hard to believe, being contradictory to all my stats. What about your ranking in international vs local version of the engines?

To get more local traffic from Y!.com than from Y!.fr/de is a rather unlikely thing, really.

[louponne]

Well, there I agree with you totally heini. My French-only sites get hits from French SE and directories. The days when knowledgable French users depended on altavista.com or google.com have been over for some time now. Google serves up their French version to anyone logging on with a French browser, so you can be sure that no French speaking user is using google.com! And of course you're right for yah**. Same goes for lycos, msn, and of course voila.fr

That's why I'm really unsure of why my e-spotting campaigns are giving me so inconsequential results.

[carlwright]

When given a choice between a search for widgets in an "Worldwide" search engine or a "French" search engine, we find that the vast majority of users tend to search Worldwide. The reasons behind this, from our perspective, vary wildly but they are definately the statistics we see.

[louponne]

I think this is just semantics. If you mean by worldwide, a SE such as google, then of course we agree. I don't know of any major SE that doesn't offer worldwide capabilities. All those available in French version, either directly or indirectly - google, voila, fast, inktomi, are worldwide in scope, even if they offer a "French only" checkbox on their interface.

[heini]

Now wait - I guess I didn't really read your first post carefully enough, Carl.

You do not have your site translated yet right?

So with english pages only, - how can they appear in french/german searches? You shouldn't even be there ;)

>we do have quite a sizeable French and German usage, most of these users still prefer to search through International engines, rather than localised versions

So how do you know then they are german/french users?

I somehow get the feeling there is a misunderstanding somewhere here....

[carlwright]

I think I may have confused things a little (nothing new there!)

We've actually started running the new Espotting German and French results through our SE, however, the takeup, even by French and German users is still staggeringly low. As I mentioned, many users still opt to do a search through our Worldwide feature rather than refining it down to a specific country category - which is a bit disapointing since the country specific sections are an area I am personally very interested in promoting.

Hopefully when we get the translation online then the takeup will be a little better.

I'm really talking from the point of the distributor rather than the advertiser.

[louponne]

oh, I hadn't read your profile, Carl :-)
BTW, your popups aren't working - their content is larger than the size of the screen that pops up.