Microsoft bCentral

Does anyone here have experience in dealing with them?

[SEO practioner]

Hi - I just looked for their FAQ's or any help and can't find any.

I just joined the Microsoft bCentral banner exchange program.

What I need to know is this:

Do I have to mark all my individual page numbers on the HTML code they supply us? I already do some business with similar banner exchange programs and they all ask that your individual page numbers be included in the code, but when I registered on the bCentral web site, they never told me anything thing about it.

I just want to make certain before I start labeling all my 200 individual pages! :-)

Thanks for any help.

[jim_w]

I used them before they changed their system. You use to be able to block ads from appearing on your site. So if a competitor’s banner showed on your site, you could block it. Then they changed the system and interface so YOU could not block it. I had to get a hold of them every time it happened. Once my competitors saw I was using banners from them, they would purchase large blocks of ad banners. Their ads starting appearing all the time on my site, so I took off their banners.

[SEO practioner]

WOW, Jim, thanks

But this dosen't sound too encouraging for me...

Wich banner exchange program (s) are you using now, if any? You can sticky me if you have a few suggestions.

We need to get traffic fast on a new site we are launching on monday.

Thanks for any help Jim or the others.

:-)

[jim_w]

I stopped using banner ads actually. I have banners only for ppl that pay me to put them on my site.

[SEO practioner]

Jim, sounds to me that youv'e had some bad experiences with them? I know banners are going out of favor and now the in thing to do is to SEO, but we are in a hurry to get this one off the ground.

Hopefully Google will pick it up, but I know it won't be til june or july 'til my client is solidly in the index.

Meanwhile, we are almost all done as far as the standard optimization is concerned and the site will be live on monday.

:-)

[jim_w]

Just monitor it like a hawk. If you start to see competitor’s banners showing up, stop it some how. Nothing like having the competition advertise on your site and you not make the money for it.

What my competitors did was purchase 10’s of 1000’s of banners ads and then limit the category they wanted them displayed in to my category. There weren’t 1000’s of sites in my category, so their banners were showing up all the time. If the competitors check out your site, which they will at some point, they may do the same. Because they purchased their banners, their sites were not showing any banners at all. But you gots to do what you gots to do to generate traffic. If no one comes into the virtual store, you can’t make sales at all.