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Does it bother anyone else that when you visit a top engine besides "The Goo" (Google), that you have identical listings showing up at the top of your search?
What happens when they expand three "Partner Sites" to five, and then to ten - knocking the pure search to page two? You know it can happen - because, according to it's vertical model, the most effective method of expansion for Overture is to get as many of it's paid listings as it can to be viewed on as many search engines as it can.
The more listings, the more clicks, and the more money paid per click.
What bothers me most is that Overture seems like a glorified FFA (free for all) - but worse since advertisers are paying thousands a month for what can possibly be fraudulent click-throughs.
They say, as does Look$mart, that they have a fraud-proof system - but show me one fraud-proof system, and I'll show you a thousand people who can circumvent it.
But I digress...
FFAs will at least list you for free (although I despise the overall idea of using FFAs to raise your PR), but Overture charges you what is designed to be an ever-increasing rate and then pushes you off the page as soon as they drill a big enough hole in your wallet - or once someone shows up with a bigger one. This makes them no better - if not worse than the carnies of the SE world.
They are slowly increasing partnerships, and once that river runs dry, the option of increasing their presence on those partnered sites is not out of the question.
How long do you think it will be until the average user is not presented with anything but a list advertisements, leaving informative, quality-driven, and content-oriented sites sitting in a 2pt "other sites" category link located underneath that chosen engine's indicia?
HyperGeek I agree with you. With in a year our profession is going to be who can write the best description. That will be the only hand we will have on the compaines that have millions of dollars. We will get paid for what knowledge on Google and on our ability to manage clicks.
I saw this coming 10 months ago, everything going PPC. The one fact I hate about SEO is that we are going to from one extreme to another, free then to PPC/I/S and the adverage joe searching on the internet will have no clue that there is a better web site out there. All the adverage joe is getting is the highest bid and has no clue what so ever. It seems more and more that the search engines are looking to decieve the customer, charge the businesses, and line their pockets. It is an unfortunate business we are in but it will not change because people will always pay for the next best listing. Its frusterating and futile to try to guess the next way that Search Engines and directories are going to fleece you.
When it comes to monetizing a search engine (they do need to survive after all), I would much prefer pay-for-inclusion at a relatively nominal rate, coupled with an awesome ranking algo and good spam protection.
This, although unfortunate in the industry's current state, I do not believe it hold up for long. WE are mostly the ones who support these engines. :) Google's popularity is not by coincidence. It's because they've consistently shown that they respect the SEO community and have honestly strived to a) provide us with a ranking system so well designed that it's being incorporated into the algos of age old engines, b) find ways to incorporate PPC ads, but in an unintrusive way with respect to their pure results and those who worked hard to rise up with them, and c) have fun with their Gooers (Klingon image search, Dilbert, their new Labs area).
Greed, although effective in short term, will always come back to bite you in your ass. Look at the effect it's had on Look$mart - who's entire model is ironically looking sad as of this post.
As many changes as there have been over the past year, the biggest change will come over the next five years. The greedy will end up barely surviving (AV, LookSmart, etc.) and people will start going for the free submissions - slowly giving the smaller engines the clout that they need to push themselves out of the darkness.
I also believe that we'll see alot of niche SEs popping up in the near future because of the ever-increasing volume of web sites. HyperGeek.com will be one of them - focused at the entertainment industry.
I've built the site by hand, in notepad, so I have added a humorous personality to the site over the endless hours of production, down to it's submission process.
It is my strong opinion that engines should be like that one really cool, smart friend everyone's had (or been) since high school. More than glad to meet your endless requests for information, fun to communicate with, always changing for the better, and most of all... loyal because of the history you have with each other.
Google doesn't want PPC to go away, they'd just rather you pay them instead of overture.
This tells me that the OTHER engines are not yet ready to change their result design to accomodate the Google PPC results.
I definitely believe that Overture is more popular due to the space they request on the partner's pages.
Whenever I notice a slip of new designs (like this one - www.hypergeek.com/yawhoops.gif ) with more space to the right, however, I do think that Overture may have given thought to a change much like Googles PPC sidebar structure - thus another reason for the lawsuit.
Either way you toss it, Google offers a real search engine backed by innovative technology ALONG WITH it's PPC model. This puts them WAY above Overture's overall model IMHO. Google also offers more in the way of budget management when it comes to their ads - plus the ads stand out more on their site. You cannot ignore the FREE submission, either - especially on a site that would easily be able to charge an arm and a leg for a listing considering their clout.
Why would you NOT want to support this company is what you have to ask yourself? They seem to have more integrity than all of the others combined.
If sites that incorporate the PR algo decide to partner with the PPC model as well, then they should conform to what it looks like on Google.com.
This *is* one of the things that Google must work on to maintain integrity in their PPC venture.
I'm not happy with ANY search engine that allows it's top results to be mirrored on another site.
What's unique about that?
This is also something that AdWords partners and Google will have to consider once AdWords (IF AdWords) gets picked up by several more partners.
And let's not fool ourselves, it's not a matter of Google being saints and doing it "for the people". Google.com is a business, but you can see that they're leaps and bounds ahead of other engines when it comes to pleasing the public.
They go the extra mile, and this should not be ignored. When it comes down to "Who do want to be doing business with in the year 2030?"... I choose Google over Overture without a second thought.
(edited by: engine at 7:44 am (utc) on May 31, 2002)
I defend Google because I'm sure if they had their choice, they would want the listings to be consistent with the ones on their site
That's a pretty big assumption. When it comes to PPC I think google wants the same as overture. To please their partners and make as much money as possible.
Lets look at your orginal problems with overture...
1. Identical listings showing up across partner sites
2. Glorified FFA (anyone can be listed high)
3. Click Fraud
How do these problems NOT apply to Adwords?
You need to just forget about google's normal search results and just compare Adwords vs Overtue. That fact is if google continues to pick up PPC market share the majority of their ppc traffic will come from their partners. And when it comes to displaying PPC results on parnter sites Adwords is no different than Overture...
(on a site note: I'd be willing to bet Google will be rolling out an express spidering service in the next year)
AdWords, and the entire PPC fraud issue is the one that I'm most concerned about. Especially when I think of the prospect of using AdWords to advertise on AOL.
I think it's a bit more than an assumption to take into consideration the "branding" of Google's PPC ads. The colored box/sidebar style is synonomous with Google AdWords - so of course, they would want their PPC's aesthetic brand recognition to be as wide-spread as possible.
For the most part, *any* type of PPC program is dangerous territory - borders on FFA - and yes, I do believe that once a site steps into the PPC arena, that they are more apt to step into the express inclusion/48 hour refresh arena, as well.
Nope. The more they look like regular search results and the less they look like ads, the more they will get clicked.
I do so because I don't believe the Overture or Look smart business models have paid any attention to the end user...the entire business is designed to work on the basis that the person making the search is a cypher and will take whatever they are given as being a good search result...that isn't how people work
the crucial thing in making a search engine work long term is to have people actually use the damn thing to search...to do that you have to give them the best results you can...or at least be seen to try
Agree with that one and it is both the surfer and the ADVERTISER who take it on the chin. The advertiser pays for "casual" traffic that has no inclination to convert to a sale and the surfer just uses the back button on highly promotional pages that do not offer substantial content for the subject at hand.
The core issue is integrity of results, LOOK and OVER have no interest in calling an AD an AD and it hurts everyone involved. In the short term this will work (due to ignorance), in the long term it will fail miserably, nobody likes to get scammed.
Second, were do you guys get the idea that overture is a SE? They're about selling advertising.. not about driving traffic to their own site. You can't compare google as a whole to Overture (apples and oranges). You have to compare Adwords to overture. And when it comes to relevancy, I found overture's editorial policies more strict than google.
"no interest in calling an AD an AD"
This is decided by the partner displaying the PPC results not the actual provider.. Lycos shows overture listings with a "SPONSORED SEARCH LISTINGS" tag... How is that any worse than how Adwords is displayed on AOL?
