looksmart uk

changed their listings?

[mr_dredd2]

ok, looksmart uk have espotting now, but has anyone else noticed how (especially) bad their results are now?

i.e.
[looksmart.co.uk...]

look after the first 10ish results - i would have thought there would be heaps of "uk mortgages" sites coming up in the directory..

anyone noticed any drops in positions??

[IanTurner]

The first results are not exactly wondrful either. The results such as below are irritating and unecessary.

For more results about <b>uk mortgages</b> from <b>whoever</b> click here

These sites in general are shopping portals/dept stores with an interest in just taking a cut of what is going. they just seem to eat keywords all over Looksmart UK

[mr_dredd2]

glad its not just me ian, but i wonder how these results are getting served? is it a paid placement? (apart from espotting) ??? or has their algo finally fell apart??

[makemetop]

They list all the LS PPC listings first - so any site that is in their Looklistings program that has the term UK in it (either visible or selected by LS as a part of their phrases) will come up before the selected term.

At least in this example some mortgage companies show up as they have paid for Looklistings - but try other searches such as uk cosmetic surgery [looksmart.co.uk] to see the utter bilge that comes up before any sites which are in the true directory.

If you hover over the listings - you will see that they all have LookSmart's PPC redirect code in them - unlike the directory listings which are a pure URL. Frankly, this is pretty bad and will prevent me from using any Looklistings service until it is cured. This has been reported to them several times as it creates completely garbage results which are not good for LS, any LS partner - nor (I would say) for the people who are paying quite a lot of money for the clicks. As for the sponsored results from Espotting - that is really nothing to do with LS and has to do with the bids the listed sites are placing with that PPC engine.

[mr_dredd2]

aha!

i didn't realise looksmart uk had their own ppc - i can't find any info on it on their website.. anyone got a url? :)

[makemetop]

Nah! But I've got a phone number of the person who keeps trying to sell me on the deal! It seems to be a media-buying deal conducted person to person. Minimum monthly spend is quite high - but as these results are also served up on NTL and BTOpenworld - no doubt lots of people are clicking on them until they get fed up - so L$ are making some extra money from it - but I'm not sure about the clients!

Thank goodness these don't show up on MSN (yet)!

[IanTurner]

If they put those kind of listings on MSN too, it would make the LSUK listing more of a waste of money than a listing that adds value.

The only reason I went for LS UK was to get targetted traffic from MSN UK, and other UK portals. If ntl and BT are cooked then that just leaves MSN and Freeserve.

[Videoman]

There are loads of examples in LS NTL or BTi search, of these garbage results (they all use the synd-uk )I invented the word "Junksults" -Junk results. I have emailed them about this twice and "the matter will be passed to a manager" .........who in turn passes it to the Bimbo by the shredder! :(

I know we pay up to go on MSN and that works fine and acknowledge that LS itself may not be too popular but as the only SE on BTopenworld which is one of the largest ISP's, this rubbish will not encourage Sam Surfer to use it.

makemetop, do you mean that as well as the paid submissions there is a PPC? Is that why all the dross comes up. No wonder...all too much for a simple Essex Lad.