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It is with great regret that I have to inform you that Top-pile.com Ltd has no alternative but to cease trading with immediate effect. It is intended to place the company into voluntary liquidation immediately aftera shareholders meeting in 3 weeks time.This situation has arisen as a result of very poor trading in the last 12 months, which in turn was primarily caused by the probelms we have encountered with search engines during that time.
Our problems began with the SALSA system in February, 2004. In the month prior to that we achieved record traffic through the SALSA system of over 90,000 visitors per day and client satisfaction was at an all-time high. Then in February we lost approximately half of our positions in Google and traffic dropped to about 50,000 visitors per day. We spent the following month conducting extensive analysis of the Google changes and trying to understand why one half of the SALSA sites had disappeared and the other half were still performing. This exercise became academic when, in mid-March 2004, we lost the remaining positions in Google and traffic dropped to 15,000 visitors per day.
The situation was worsened by the fact that Yahoo had just launched a new index and search engine and we had yet to feature prominently in it and inktomi's abandonment of Paid Inclusion meant that we were also suffering in MSN.
The combination of these three factors led to a very real threat of the domesday scenario of haing to refund all SALSA sites sold in January, February and March as a result of their failing to achieve the guarantee, a total potential refund of some £350,000 that would have been catastrophic for the company.
As it was, our analysis of Google led us to the predominance of well rated sites in the results simply because they had a page that mentioned the search term, and from this we took a number of well rated sites and built large directories off them related to the search terms being promoted in the SALSA system. This had a dramatic effect on our positions in Google and saved us from a refund situation that would almost certainly have bankrupted the company back then, although we did still refund approximately £100,000 over the course of the following months.
>From this experience we created top4clicks and partnered with well rated sites to create large directories of search terms and we would share the income. Top4clicks started off very well and within a few months we had 400 accounts open spending a peak of £3,700 per day. The sitiuation looked very good and we were well on course to achieve £10,000 income per day by January. This also gave us the opportunity to discontinue SALSA which could best be described as limping along but absorbing significant customer support resources (although many established SALSA sites continued to achieve good traffic levels from Yahoo and MSN).
Unfortunately, it proved to be a false dawn. Despite these directories complying in all respects with Google's guidelines, from November onwards Google's algorithms appeared to shift and the directories started gradually disappearing, to the point where we have gone in 4 months from 400 clients spending in total £3,700 per day to 1,050 accounts spending in total £300 per day.
Throughout the last year our cashflow has steadily deteriorated and we are now in a situation that even if we could fix the issues with SALSA / top4clicks we no longer have the time or resources to do so. We have cut the staffing levels down from nearly 40 to just 5 in the last few weeks and the turnover just keeps on getting worse. We now have no prospect of paying off the debts that have accumulated and we have no alternative but to cease trading.
I cannot over-emphasize how sorry I personally am that this situation has arisen. We had a great team here at top-pile and it has been heart-breaking to see it torn apart over the last few months. We prided ourselves on the fact that we represented one of the only realistic alternatives for SMEs who wanted success on the Internet but the search engines are determined to ensure that that is not the case and that ultimately all companies will need to do business with them if tehy want to succeed on the Internet. I continue to believe that this is not fair and that SMEs are entitled to a fairer slice of the search engine pie considering it is their content that has made the search engines successful in the first place. But I will not dwell too long on that thorny subject here!
As a result of the company ceasing trading, all services will cease with immediate effect.
The following additional comments apply to the specific products:
top-pile Submit
We will speak to the company's insolvency practitioner about resurrecting this service as it is very much a standalone service and capable of being relaunched. Service will no matter what happens cease for a few weeks but should we be successful we will continue to honour client's contractual periods.
SALSA
SALSA is a complex solution in terms of creation, hosting and maintenance of the sites. We will again speak to the Insolvency Practitioner about the possibility of taking over existing SALSA contracts, but please note that the service will stop for at least a few weeks and when and if re-launched may exclude certain aspects of the previous service (for instance guarantees and rank tracking).
top4clicks
As mentioned above, there are 1,050 active accounts in top4clicks. All of these clients have balances remaining in their accounts and as such will become creditors of the company in liquidation. Due to the priority rules governing insolvency, I regret to say that there is no prospect of clients receiving any refund whatsoever. However, I personally still believe that top4clicks can be made to perform again in the search engines and it is my hope that a new company will express an interest in taking over these deposits and deliver the traffic until each account reaches zero. I hope you understand that I cannot guarantee anything and there will be no refunds given, but if we can deliver the related traffic over any length of time that is a better situation than currently.
Other services
All other ancillary services will cease immediately and will be dealt with by the Provisional Liquidator.
Please once again accept my apologies for this situation. I sincerely hope that we will all meet up again under better circumstances.
Regards
Paddy Bolger
CEO
I'm aware there are still results 1-10 on search engines
2003 = 3 billion pages
2005 = 8 billion pages
now if my maths is correct there are more page this year than in 2003, even a 5 year old child could see that if you take the little number away from the bigger number you are left with the difference, It was easier for the simple reason there was less people who knew how to get to the top and there was a hell of a lot less pages/sites using the same techniques.
Meaning
It was a lot easier to get your page to appear on page one
so even a 5 year old child could do it, it was a figure of speech type comment, you took it personally but like always there's nothing new there!
No one would dispute they have made a few mistakes, blimey I make them all the time but I only have 4 mouths to feed (family), I don't do any work for clients anymore only my own sites and being totally organic I have felt the high's and low's of the updates just like they have.
I had a conversation with a CEO of a large company this time last year who said you can't have a strong business model based on organic traffic which prompted me to take a slightly different approach allowing me to still put food on the table, I can diversify quickly, a larger company can't always change that fast even though they would be aware of problems
I do not know Paddy either but I don't like seeing anyone being put down which its all to easy to do when things have turned pear shaped, but likewise I am not saying he needs patting on the back either.
I think it is important to remember that sooner or later the search bubble that we are in, is going to burst. We all need to have sound biz plans when that happens.
...missed ya in ny mmt.
I think we'll see an awful lot more of this as companies become more search engine savvy and don't throw cash at any company offering promises. Do you remember when people were charging £1,000 - £2,000 for a 10 page templated site?
even a 5 year old child could see that if you take the little number away from the bigger number you are left with the difference
;) I think we should stop as you're simply looking for a fight, you didn't understand my post at all. The number of pages in the index doesn't make any difference to the number of people in the top 10 spots.
As far as I'm aware there are still only 10 top 10 places today
Your stating the obvious so I choose to ignore it...
Of course there are only 10 positions on a page showing 10 search results, but there is more competition and more pages than ever before all fighting for this same search results page.
In the course of the phone conversation their representative tried to convince me that since our dental office does not know whether our patients may be serial killers or crooks, neither should they take responsibility for their clients...
These guys were pushing the envelope in all kinds of directions, definitely not white-hat.
You're kidding, right?
- Today there are far more sophisticated players
- Way back then it was far easier to crack the algo's. (5 year olds in mid level cat's and even some very tough cat's had a field day if they just understood the concept of a keyword...not now)
Basic business 101: As categories develop, they become more sophisticated, harder to enter, harder to survive. It is why over time the bigger players tend to control the lion's share of any market. With only rare exceptions.
We're only still in the late stages of the Wild West here. Players who don't get this won't be around in a few years, unless they are already at the larger companies, or already know how they intend to compete with the larger companies.
Everybody ready? OK! To the starting line! Blinders off - set - GO!
;-)
