JSearch big claims - any truth?

biggest in UK by the summer!!

[IanTurner]

JSearch.co.uk claim that they will be the biggest search engine in the UK by the summer, 5 times as big as Lycos.

Do you really think that they can do it. Have you heard of them, or is it really just another front for 'Keywords' sales?

[tigger]

Never heard of them, so far there just displaying overture results

>Do you really think that they can do it

All depends how deep there pockets are :)

[JamJar]

Well I've had a call from a guy who reckons they can get 5.6 million J-Search toolbars in front of UK users by the summer.

Doesn't the google tootlbar serve aout 2 million *globally*??!!

Seems like another chuck money at it only to earn as much of it back, but not think about the consumer offering.

Any company that focuses on too many things at once (ie design, ISP, ecommerce, web search, domain names, realnames, consumer marketing, SEO services etc etc) at an early stage in development is going to have a hell of a job ensuring they succedd in even one of their offerings.

[4eyes]

I just checked them out in detail, as they are fairly local to me.

It turns out that I know some of the history of the Executive Director of the operation - he once worked with two of my co-directors.

The previous companies he had a role in did a lot of cold-calling selling domain names and keywords.

There was also a fair amount of 'hype' surrounding some of their recent ventures - TV Appearances and Local press coverage.

Good Luck to them if they can make it work, but I am not holding my breath.

(edited by: 4eyes at 12:23 pm (utc) on April 5, 2002)

[click watcher]

>>Never heard of them, so far there just displaying overture results

i just ran a quick test and they are alternating what they call google and goto results.eg 1,3,5,7 google
2,4,6,8 goto etc.

goto are obviously overture, but a bit deceptive to use the old name

google results as provided by netscape search.

[IanTurner]

So its a thumbs down all round then.

Consign to they are there but not worth thinking about category.

[markd]

Isn't the Search Engine a 'lost leader' to sell their software utility which claims to enable more intuitive searching?

[Liz]

We had about 6 phone calls in a week from someone else making similar claims about a different product. My very sure of myself guess is that it's a complete waste of money.

[markd]

Must admit, getting cold calls which sell SEO as a 'product' always speaks volumes for me!

[brotherhood of LAN]

JSearch, I think I remember them that night I submitted my site to the 101 local engines :)

5.4 million toolbars by Summer? Its already Spring. Its already Spring and the guy has 60 days to produce 5.4 million visitors never mind 5.4 million toolbars!

[carlwright]

They called one of my clients claiming they already receive 2 million "looks" for "weather" each month through their toolbar(?) - and wanted him to part with £450/yr to buy the said keyword - it seems to me that their sales team have been told to say anything to get signups, I would tread carefully, they are obviously making a big effort to get the word around (in my opinion!)

[JamJar]

sounds like they've been taking a few too many 'Jays' as opposed to looks, perhaps their business model will change as quickly as the weather lookers seem to run away from their site....

[tigger]

They contacted a client of mine today fortunately he's well trained and passes anyone search engine related over to me so I do hope they phone :)

Now what would be the first question to through them off the usual script?

[markd]

Independently audited visitor statistics, plus detailed segmentation information for visitors to their 'engine'?

I can hear 'we'll get back to you' as I write this...

[tigger]

LOL :)

[IanTurner]

Pretty close to the line I took, which wa can I have some return on investment figures and some page view stats.

The telesales girl couldn't get her head around the concept.