Looksmart Pros and Cons?

[mistah]

With Espotting and Overture increasing their minimum bids, I'd like to take a fresh look at Looksmart. Are there any good threads explaining the pros and cons, and the best tactics to use?

[sem4u]

[webmasterworld.com...]

[mistah]

OK, the con is that they're a bunch of crooks.

However, I'm having a problem getting top listings on MSN UK. The top two listings are from Looksmart, but for some reason, my listings on Overture are not shown after these. Instead, it goes straight to Inktomi listings, which I am not doing particularly well in. This only happens for some phrases.

Now that I'm paying 10pence a click on Overture, I might as well look at Looksmart who charge 15cents (approx 10 pence).

I have not looked at Looksmart for some time because I was ripped off by the original promise of lifetime listings. However, Overture and Espotting appear to be becoming alsmost as arrogant with their new minimum bid policy.

[born2drv]

I've noticed that if you're really targetting "blue widgets" for example, you will get about 40-70% of your traffic for "blue widgets" and the rest is variations of search terms including sometimes "blue" or "widgets" or "blue funky widgets" ... etc.

So if you're trying to target one specific search term, or the search term you're trying to target is very similar to something else, forget it. But if you sell lots of variations of "blue widgets" or even "widgets" it may be worth looking into, even if say 20% or 30% of traffic is junk. Economically, it still may work for you @ $0.15/click.

[Shak]

Looksmart UK does not work to the $0,15 model, instead they will choose a rate dependant on the OV type market out there.

I spoke to them on Friday and they quoted £0,18 for campaign based in the UK, which has an avergae of £0,15 on Google and Overture.

Shak

[charge]

Shak, any idea why LOOKSMART have dropped all other portals and have decieded to just run with MSN uk?
cheers.

[Shak]

not too sure, although I did semi-predict this back in jan/Feb when my meeting with MSN took place, however everyone there was very quiet.

[webmasterworld.com...]

You didnt hear this from me (in case it doesnt happen).
But Looksmart are about to seriously go into Marriage with MSN starting Feb-March 2003.

these days I think 99.5% of their traffic is MSN.

Shak

[WebStart]

I cannot figure out how their system works: because I use them to get on MSN, and for no other reason, and MSN listings are a real mystery. So I don't know what exactly, with emphasis on exactly, LS brings the advertiser: but will say, it has got me on MSN.

In what position one might wind up in, is still a mystery -- but I am usually on pg 1 with my bidded keyword(s). Also LS doesn't cost much compared to AdWords and Overture -- and for MSN, it helps, and for that benefit alone, the cost is not that high.

[sem4u]

LookSmart has its own algo and MSN has a different algo.

You can be #1 for a keyphrase on LookSmart and #20 on MSN!

It seems to be completely random sometimes.