AV contact us page

[chadlerh]

I have to say I'm impressed with AV's contact us page. I think our sites may be banned. Everyone says they are getting in so fast but not us. I think we must be banned by IP because new submissions never make it into the index.

Well what I wanted to really talk about was how easy their contact us page was. It has a drop down on the form with a choice for "URL listing support" And I recieve an autorepy saying their goal is to respond within 2 business days!

"We value your input and read 100% of it. Our goal is to reply to all
questions requiring a response within 2 Business Days. "

At least they are doing something right!

[Drastic]

Will be interesting to see if they meet their "goal."

Others here have had no such luck.

[seth_wilde]

Lets us know how this works out for you. AV is notorious for their complete lack of customer support. But, I have been hearing reports of AV actually anwering emails lately so maybe they've made some improvements...

[awoyo]

They're doing something, alright. Unfortunately, I don't know what it is, and I have my doubts they do, either. I've been watching several sets of keyword combinations since Sept. 13th, 2000 and have seen very little consistency in results over the long run.

Back on topic:

I submitted some "concerns" I had about a whole bunch of blatant spam in their results. I was issued the New - Improved cursory "we'll check into it" email and have yet to see any improvement in their listings. I let them know exactly what I found and how they can find the spam which covers an astounding 98 percent of the returns for these keywords over the first three pages. After that, the returns are identical repeats spanning across 20some pages. Pure garbage!

Sorry for ranting, people, but I'm just dumbfounded at AV's lack of professionalism in this. And to top it off, they spam me every time I use their site and get one of their pop-up windows. I don't see how they have the nerve to ban your site. Don't know what you are accused of doing but I'll venture to say you don't have 28/30 results all pointing to the same page for a product that's not even related to the keywords used to deliver those results. Un-real!

[chadlerh]

sorry I didn't get back to you sooner, yes it only took them two days but their reply is of no use.

Dear AltaVista Customer,

We apologize if your site has not yet appeared in the AltaVista
Search Index. Please refer to our submission guidelines at:

[doc.altavista.com...]

We encourage you to read these guidelines, and if necessary,
modify your site accordingly. Once your site has been modified,
please feel free to submit it again using our Add a URL page:

[add-url.altavista.com...]

Regards,

AltaVista Support Team

Original Message Follows:
-------------------------

[seth_wilde]

"it only took them two days but their reply is of no use"

Yep, that's AV for ya.

On a similar note

As American as Curry Pie [wired.com]

"We do all the online support work for AltaVista and Shutterfly,"

[vis]

From the outsourced customer service website:

"The decision to use <Indian company> paid off. By switching to an overseas outsourcer, Altavista was able to slash customer support costs by 25%."

Yeah, or the level of customer service could have been increased by 25%.