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He's been working hard for them so I'd say yes they're willing.
However, as of Monday morning I am no longer working for BlowSearch so I cannot "officially" comment on anything they are doing.
It was not a shock. I saw it coming and there are a number of reasons why this happend. Most of which I will write in detail about on my own site sometime over the next few days.
If anyone needs an experienced search guy with a long list of contacts please let me know .... lol.
Trouble was, we got zero clicks after a week. What's worse, the BS reports didn't divulge how many impressions our ads were making or even on what sites our ads were appearing! If I recall, we could opt in/out of individual sites but they were referenced anonymously with 6-digit numbers.
BS' tech support kept encouraging us to activate the CPM option (as opposed to PPC) but I had serious reservations about doing that without knowing which sites our ad would be running on. BS tech support told me that BS' ad network was mostly consumer oriented, and our service is B2B.
In the end, their tech support guy informed me that I simply didn't understand how a mid-tier search engine worked! I cancelled our account and they said they would refund our $50. Time Waster.
If you ask me they were all hype. They tried to get it out in the industry that they had this click fraud program, got some people to sign up (even when it wasn't ready yet) and basically took people's money.
Joe has explained on his website that he thought they truly meant to roll out click defender,,,but I suspect it was all a Marketing/PR stunt by Blowsearch's CEO and other Management.
This company is done and so is there reputation. I called Blowsearch on being all BS (that's bull#*$!) and that's exactly what this company and their CEO is. And if you think I've never spoken to Angel myself personally...well you're wrong.
Boston, the click fraud detection was a real product but it got bogged down. However that had nothing to do with Angel Pabon. He wanted it launched. Unfortunately he was not able to get the support to do that. Four partners, equal shares between them, no overriding vote = stalemate.
The whole situation really is mind boggling but life goes on. Time to look ahead and move on to hopefully much bigger and better things.
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The people handling the affiliates/publishers? Well, one was brand new and the other plays Yahoo! Games all day. His idea of recruiting good affiliates is approving the ones who sign up via the registration from. So I did what I needed to do to created revenue for my company and brought in search deals. I also was doing heavy marketing for BlowSearch during this time. This greatly boosted revenues on the advertiser side and drove in a lot of new accounts as well as re-energized the old ones.
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However BlowSearch needed controversy to stir up interest. I created the controversy and put myself in the center of that stage."
I think *everybody* working for Blowsearch, including those who posted on these very forums time and time again to hype them up, should be held accountable. Anybody who works for a company knowing they are engaged in less than honorable practices is accountable. I wouldn't work with any of them.
Have you been there the last four months? Do you know what has been going down? No. So don't sit there and pontificate about how you think there was some kind of conspiracy or wrong doing toward advertisers.
The only less than honorable practices here were ones that were internal to the company partners only and have nothing to do with the advertisers. The company can still go forward with the plans I set in place for it. They can launch the Click Defender product today should they choose to. They don't need me for that. If they choose to do the right thing, let them. It's not my decision or my call. I don't own the company - you can hold them accountable for anything after I leave if you like.
I left honorably and did everything in my power to move things forward for advertisers. What did that get me? Cut loose without severance and a way to feed my family. So don't sit there and talk in my direction about honor.
Hold whoever you want accountable 1lit. My job was marketing the company and expanding their presence. I did that better than most other middle market engines have been able to do in this business because I got personal and in the trenches with my buyers. I'd do that again too should the situation warrant it and I believe in the bottom line.
Frankly, 1lit, don't ever question my commitment to my profession. I don't take kindly to it. Anyone who knows me personally, (which you do not) knows how committed I am to what I do. I haven't given up eight years of my life as an Internet marketer, web developer, or bus dev guy to let you take that from me. I'll take that same professional commitment I have wherever I land next and that company will be the better for it too, I hope.
Joe I suspect worked his ass off and had good intentions. But like every CPC company, they don't get that you have to have qualified traffic to sustain a successful business. Perhaps they thought they'd get more people to sign up as advertisers and make a buck longer than they did. Who knows?
If they had any business ethics they would make some acknowledgement that at this time their 'Click Defender' product is not coming out. That's what really struck a nerve with me and this company. I believe 100% that they used all the talk of this Click Defender product to sign up new advertisers. But the product wasn't ready; and that is unethical in my book.
Yes they probably told you that it's 'coming soon' should someone ask. But I think they handled this very poorly and to their advantage.
Sure when you start testing a product and realize that it actually works, as Joe said 'too well' and cuts almost all of their clicks. Well that's just confirmation that you're traffic is worthless and you are just another CPC company 'taking' people's money.
Joe if you were on the other end and spending money with Blowsearch in the past 6 months, I'm sure you would have been furious with the quality of clicks in almost every B2B/B2C industry.
Final statement: Beware of Blowsearch. Avoid it like the plague.
Many people have had to format their computers because of cool web search spyware simply because even the very best antispyware products have not been able to remove some of the variants.
