Natural Language Navigation

is this a flushing money down the toilet?

[steveo3818]

We were recently contacted by a firm that specializes in buying keywords and phrases that are searchable in the nav bar:

$5000 for 1 key word and the prices go on and on... My boss is considering spending $15000 for the year for their service
It looks as if they have affiliates that sell this plugin or "spyware" as I see it.

I posed some simple questions to the sales rep

1. is this a plugin or spyware?
2. how many users use the plugin
3. can people find it easily?
4. what platform is this for PC/Mac

The sales rep gave me the standard jargon about 7 million users and growing. 7 million users world wide is very small considering the population of the Earth!

I asked for some companies that use this service and they wouldn't disclose over the phone but wanted me to conference call with their VP of sales.

Does anyone out their have any positive or negative experiences from using similar services?

I would want to make an informed decision before my boss uses my raise to attempt to boost sales!

[pixel_juice]

Hi steveo3818, welcome to webmasterworld.

Please read this thread [webmasterworld.com] about this subject, especially the last post. You can find a lot of information on the site using the site search (at the top of the page).

[edited by: pixel_juice at 9:26 pm (utc) on May 15, 2003]

[fathom]

From the users end (at about 85%) unwanted "spam" is what you would be soliciting as... unwanted because most people don't know how to drop the scamware off their system.

[steveo3818]

I just used ad-aware and took off all that junk including IGN's software.

Anyone suggest some questions I should ask these people?
The sales reps for these companies seem to have a knack for avoiding questions and I'd like to be prepared for a conference call with their supposed VP

[msgraph]

This topic has been discussed numerous times on this board. There are many companies out there pitching offers on keyword selling through navigation bars. Most all of these offers are scams that are nothing more than making these keyword searches appear as though they were exclusively displayed through them when in fact they are nothing more than PPC listings offered through other companies. If they are not third party PPC sellers, they are offered through toolbars that never draw the amount of users they claim OR toolbars/browser modifications that hijack web browsers through deceptive links or scripting.

Here is another topic on this subject.
[webmasterworld.com...]

With the above being stated, I am locking this thread.