hotbot uk now just a shell

[engine]

How to drive traffic away, see hotbot.co.uk [hotbot.co.uk]

What a shame to let these properties go. It has happened many times before with the demise of other services that used to drive good traffic.

The landscape has changed so much that perhaps this is inevitable. I don't believe it's quite that bad when the property as big as the name hotbot had traffic.

Surely, it would be better to put the thing up for sale than to let it crumble.

[Bobby_Davro]

I would have thought that they could simply have kept it alive using Fast/Inktomi search results and Overture for PPC but keep it as Hotbot branded as possible through the years. However, for a long time, wasn't Hotbot simply a skin for Lycos, with Lycos heavily mentioned? This of course eroded the user base and removed any brand recognition. Didn't they go as far as to forward it to hotbot.lycos.co.uk?

What they have now - Inktomi + overture - is an improvement. At least it is a clean search engine.

[engine]

Absolutely correct, but why would anyone bother to use it when there are plenty of other sources of the same information, with added value?

Nah, its been squandered and a shame to see it that way.

[netcommr]

I have always been baffled by 'who' used Hotbot, but got traffic so I didn't waste too much time trying to figure it out.

[Bobby_Davro]

Why would anyone bother? I think that some people carry on using whatever they have always used, as long as it provides reasonable results. People *do* use engines that aren't Google/Yahoo/MSN/Ask and I suppose it comes down to something as simple as whether the user prefers the font size and layout, or whether they once had a really useful set of results. Maybe they like the advanced search options?

I can't imagine why anyone would want to use Ask Jeeves - I hate the thing - but obviously some people think that it is a great engine.