Previously, all GBP have delivered is about 2-3 hits a month from people looking to sell me or my clients things. Now I seem to be getting some reasonably good hits (ie: more than 2 page views) and much more traffic.
Is this a sign of things to come - does this mean we may soon have a worthwhile UK Directory (all puns intended) ?
Mark
Both are from top ten rankings.
Got to admit I was surprised.
Haven't checked if these were one confused punter or genuine leads yet.
PS One of my other sites had more traffic from Excite than from any other engine - On checking it turned out the customer could never remember his web address and used to advise people to 'go to excite and search for 'keyword'. As he had also been doing this 2-3 times per day himself, it accounted for almost all the Excite traffic :)
You couldn't make it up!
Back to GBP - I've seen steady traffic over the last couple of weeks for one client in particular. More than UKDirectory, UKPlus (what is it with this one ?), HotBot, AOL UK and Freeserve. And before you ask, they have 30 number one positions in the last 3 for very targeted and relevant keywords.
I am beginning to think that GBP are starting to take themselves a little more seriously. If they could extend their regional directories past the home counties, then everyone could benefit more from this.
Also it is very small and the url is very long - possibly a problem. I am sure i read somewhere that UK Plus is changing or dissappearing.
Markymark, the webmaster previous to me that did not have a clue about SEO, submitted a directory listing to UKplus, and i've tried everything imaginable to get it change to a more reflective description of what the company does, nope - notya bean. Bad news, whatever is happening there.
I tried to add a site late last night and received a error message. I emailed GBP and they replied this evening saying the problem was fixed. I added my site and within 20 minutes it had been approved and was live.
If you have a userid and password you can amend your own descriptions.
As makemetop mentioned, GBP are serving up Espotting results for general searches. Espotting uses a Euro-filtered Inktomi database for its back up results which is why you are seeing French sites, etc.
I think I am getting good results for clients mainly because I - and most of my clients- are based in Kent and they have a separate but associated Kent directory that is appearing a lot in the top ten of relevant searches on other main search engines. However, if I was a new directory, this is how I would approach increasing traffic to my search engine.
UKPlus ? Forget about it - the description, etc. was not down to the previous webmaster. They are all written by the UKplus staff. You won't be able to get it changed. Unless anyone else knows better, it is just luck where you end up in the results.
I dont remember even hearing of GBP before seeing the forum message, other than on a list of UK SE's so how Syd and Sandra Surfer ever find them..... whilst I come up in the DMOZ results I will not be MAXing my Mac meal on the strength of what I have seen so far. Now Lycos over the past 14 days has been rather interesting.......
