I recently submitted a site to LookSmart UK in order to appear in MSN UK. When I did the first report for this client, we were listed for their main keyword which is also the name of their site. They are one of the most relevant sites for this keyword so I wasn't surprised they got the number 1 spot.
However, when I did a report again last week to see where they were (we mainly do traffic reports but the client likes to see rankings also) they had disappeared from the #1 position to not being in the top 60! I can't understand what could have happened.
I noticed we had also disappeared from LookSmart.com, but the reason for this was that we only have a certain budget for this so once it runs out, the site disappears for a week or two each month.
Could this have anything to do with the LookSmart UK site disappearing? I always presumed the LS UK & US were separate but I cannot think of another reason why the site would disappear from LookSmart UK. The first report I did was 20/11/02 and the second was 06/12/02.
Has anyone any ideas on this? I am stumped!
Thank you,
ck
WEB DIRECTORY SITES (US)
Only time will tell, what is going to happen
Shak
I emailed MSN UK so will let u know if they reply!
a) You submit site to L$ US and you appear in MSN.com and MSN UK in the US directory listing. It is a PPC listing and remains as long as you have funds in your PPC account.
b) You submit the same site to L£ UK and you appear in MSN UK in the UK directory section above your L$ US listing in the US directory section.
c) L$ notice and say a big 'thank-you'. They switch your L£ UK listing to one which has a L$ US tracking PPC code. So you have now paid for a one-off listing which costs you 15 cents per click off your L$ US account.
d) You use your account up - you drop from L$ US and MSN US AND L£ UK and MSN UK. Now wasn't that money well spent :)
e) You get pretty p*ssed off about this and threaten to take legal action against L£ UK.
f) L£ UK replace your original URL in L£ UK with one with a spurious character at the end of it like a '?' so that L$ US can't hi-jack it.
g) You now have a non-charged per click listing in MSN UK.
h) It is the start of a new month - your account renews at L$ US - guess what? You have 2 identical listings in the UK directory section of MSN UK and 1 in the US section. 2 can get charged 15 cents and 1 is 'free'. Usually the one which gets the higher ranking is the one which costs you money (no surprise there)!
i) You threaten legal action (in a very nice way) against L£ UK.
j) They remove the duplicate chargeable listing from L£ UK (when they can remember).
k) L£ UK is taken over by L$ US
l) Start at (a) :)
To be continued.....
makemetop, thanks for the info!
It was worth far more submitting to L£ UK than L$ if you are a UK site - it is L$ US that messes it up and L£ UK always changed the URL if asked, so you don't get charged.
How do L$ get away with it? The majority haven't noticed so they just do!
Now that BTLookSmart is history - who knows what will happen.
Notice you said you emailed Looksmart.
Did you get a reply?
Yes I did get a reply. I don't think I'm allowed paste it according to the forum rules (correct me if i'm wrong on that one) but it was basically an apology for the site "slipping" out of the directory and they admitted it was because of the US listing. They said the two listings were linked and because the US recently changed to a pay per click model, the site was automatically deactivated.
They said they would create a separate entry for the UK listing which would not be linked but would replicate the existing entry.
They said it had been difficult to trace customers who had been deactivated in the UK since the US model changed and the US have been deactivating their records, but that the US had been informing them of most of the entries.
Indeed. LookSmart strike again with their wonderful customer service!
