Looksmart Small Business Listings for Europe

Have they changed the quality of results for Europe

[Shakil]

Last week I spent a whole morning researching Looksmart listings from Looksmart.com (NOT .co.uk) and their presence across Europe (actually places such as MSN.de and MSN.SE etc etc etc)
anyway for the industry we are in lots of good results were showing, especially as product names tend to be different in Europe than our competitors in the USA, so as I said it looked like a good route to market.

Today I have checked all the Europe MSN portals and discovered that only 1 result seems to be showing, and THAT is the 1 with "keyword" in the domain, so unlike before they are not giving benefit for the content but instead just showing 1 result for the keywords I searched on, and to top it off the URL is "similar" to keyword-buy-usa.com

anyone care to shed some light on this?

Shak

[Bernie]

hello shak,

across Europe (actually places such as MSN.de and MSN.SE etc etc etc)

MSN.de results (in this order):
- sponsoring partner from msn (1-2 results)
- overture clients (3 results)
- the rest of the listing comes directly from

[allesklar.de....]

go to msn.de and check for the keyword of your industry, the second result is a site listed in allesklar.de

allesklar.de is a PFI directory. see rates:

[allesklar.de...]

Discussion about PR-Inheritance from Allesklar.de:
[webmasterworld.com...]

cheers
Bernie

[Shakil]

Bernie,

for the keyword in question at msn.de I am getting in top position above all others:

WEBVERZEICHNISSITES (USA) > which I assume is Looksmart.com result

and then

WEBSEITEN

no overture etc

Shak

[Torben Lundsgaard]

In Denmark Looksmart is experimenting with three different registration packages (5, 10 and 15 keywords). Maybe that is causing them problems.

[Bernie]

shak,

the results may be different because you are starting your request from a non-german IP.

[Bernie]

drop my last idea, we had different keywords.

[Shakil]

Torben,

I am seeing exactly the same scenario at msn.dk as i was at msn.de

only 1 url with keyword in domain shows up, very confusing since the Looksmart.com site returns many more relevant results WITHOUT keyword in domain.

Shak

[wolfy]

If you search for English keywords you'll be shown Looksmart results ( WEBVERZEICHNISSITES ) and Inktomi ( seiten ) but if you use local keywords you'll see Overture and then Allesklar results.

[Bernie]

shak you are right,

the result comes from looksmart.com (webverzeichnissites) USA, the rest comes from MSN-Search // Inktomi. So I conclude that MSN.de will only show looksmart.com and inktomi results IF the keyword is NOT in either one of those:

- AUSGEWÄHLTE WEBSITESINFO (MSN-Sponsoring-Partners)
- Overture-Germany
- Allesklar.de Webdirectory.

[heini]

That's how it works, Bernie. Actually Allesklar listings are not necessarily prioritized.
MSN serps are apart from being messie really hard to fully comprehend.
It would certainly be cool to spend a day or two at MSN spying...

[Bernie]

hey wolfy,

it's you from italy? :-)

I guess it doesn't matter if english or german. there are words in the german language that are english but germans advertise for it because they are used in the german language.

e.g. you may try leasing,promotion,marketing, and many more.

[Shakil]

Ok fine, but why are Looksmart/Msn etc giving only preference to KeywordDomains.

very bad move I think, and I intend raising it with them, once I can find a good friendly person to speak to.

Shak

[wolfy]

>Bernie
yes I'm Wolfy from the sunny Italy
Ok may be it doesn't matter the language but let's say that if no advertisers are found for the German market and no German web sites are found too Looksmart USA results will be displayed right?.

[Shakil]

Hi Wolfy,

you are basically along the right lines.

however what I am saying is only Looksmart results with Keyword in domain is showing up for a number of searches I have made.

Shak

[Bernie]

ciaooo wolfy,

tutto bene a FI? Spero che ci sia tempo meno brutto che qua in Teutonia. *gg*

about keywords: you defined it precisely.

[wolfy]

Ciao Bernie,
tutto bene il sole splende e fa caldo qui :)

ok Shak I've understod what you wanted to say you should contact Looksmart ans ask why they make these differences.
Let us know.

[Shakil]

I have emailed Looksmart with my findings and hopefully we will get an answer as to the reason for this "Strange" scenario.

In the past they have always responded, so am keeping fingers crossed.

shall keep you posted.

Shak

[Shakil]

Looksmart have replied, and the feeling is the following:

1, This is a MSN issue, in the way they choose to show results.

so looks like I will have to track down someone at MSN

Shak :(

[wolfy]

Yes it seems you should contact Msn !