hermia

apparently they are set to take over the world

[mr_dredd]

Some of our clients have been contacted by hermia .co.uk who say they are about to secure deals with this and that major portal for supplying search results. HAd a quick look and they seem to just be basically a mix of dmoz and inktomi - anyone heard of them????

[makemetop]

It was actually featured on a BBC2 program (Trouble at the Top) on Thursday! The story of how a Jonathan Cohen (I think that was his name) started a Jewish website with some money borrowed from his Dad and sold it for a few hundred thou' by his 18th birthday. Then he started a porn search engine and hermia hoping to sell advertising space on them. The company appears to be run by a load of Mr. Cohen's school chums with Dad and various relations stumping up a lot of dough hoping for a big pay-off. Most memorable shots in the film were of the CEO giving instructions on how to run the company while lying on the floor waggling his feet!

They reckon they are the 10th largest search facility in the UK and are (according to the statements in the film) going to overtake Lycos. Results are (as you say) DMOZ (sort of) and Ink and I've loads of top listings over a wide variety of clients on Hermia - however I've never, ever had a single referal from them out of the hundreds of UK engine searches logged daily to the sites I monitor. Am I just unlucky? Or maybe no-one uses them!

[NFFC]

"The claims that the search engine was written by Ben in his bedroom weren't investigated any further, which is a shame because they would have found it bears a strong similarity to the Open Directory Project run by Netscape."

The Register [theregister.co.uk] has this and many other background articles, makes for a fun read!

[tigger]

well lets look at some the great UK SE they are providing results for I've only ever come across them on Cyberbritain ! where else are they ?

[FreeBee]

methinks "the one web address you'll never need"....

[mr_dredd]

what can i say??!!!
:)

[engine]

If I remember correctly I, nor any of my clients sites, have ever received a referal. I suspect that it is the usual hype that makes this seem like a good story.

I still believe, it's the BIG engines and directories, along with certain specialists sectors, that will bring home the bacon. ;) Not a small broadline resource.

[makemetop]

May I say sorry to all the Jonathan Cohens in the world - it was Ben...

>well lets look at some the great UK SE they are providing results for I've only ever come across them on Cyberbritain !

Owned by - you're right - a certain Ben!!!

Have you seen their pitch? You can get a listing on the top results of their engine guaranteed for a mere £600 per year - AND - if you want a higher ranking you can also pay per click (but you've got to pay the £600 first). The site states that competition is tough as they only list the top 50 or so sites - so get in quick for a top ranking!

Funny, I haven't paid a penny but I do have several #1 spots and quite a few top 10s.

As for the DMOZ listings - I was wrong, I did get a hit from hermia and was so shocked by tracing the results I commented on it here [webmasterworld.com].

I think Ben was doing something else in his bedroom!

[engine]

£600 - how can that be justified? Now, if you were to get lots of referals, then, there is some way of justifying paid entries.

[tigger]

after a long week trying to beat the SE's I thought I would submit a few site's to our wonderfull UK directories & after completing the submission form for Cyberbritain(hermia), I know don't ask me why must be the stress, had this come up "Thanks for submitting your site with CyberBritain, but your site will probably not be included in our directory. To find out why, read on......"

I think it's time to hang up the mouse, grab my credit card in hand and of course pay them £600 (NOT!) as zebidie said bong time for vodka and before anyone comes back with no he didn't I referring the russan series!!!!