Lycos "premium links"

any comments please

[colintho]

I've just been offered a lycos "premium links" by an SEO specialist for quite a good / relative / available keyword.

Before taking the plunge and "investing" several hundred pounds for this keyword link - are there any opinions out there.

[4eyes]

Without passing judgement on the Lycos ad, I would ask yourself how many other ways the money could be spent, and which will get the best return on investment.

eg:

Yahoo (if you are not already in)
Looksmart (ditto)
Inktomi pages
..etc

4Eyes

[makemetop]

What did they mean by a 'Lycos premium link'?

I'm an SEO specialist (allegedly) - and I don't know what they are! If they are talking about premium directory listings - they are worthless. If they are talking about sponsored listings, you can get them yourself through Overture/Espotting (depending on country). If they are talking about keyword driven banners - that is really nothing to do with SEO (and don't work that well anyway in most markets). If they are talking about paid inclusion, you can do that yourself as well.

As 4eyes said, it is probably only worth spending any money with Lycos if all other more important areas have been covered.

[colintho]

not sure if url will be allowed but here it is www.touchnw.co.uk/lycos/

due to go live 1st December 2002 - is this news?

I do a little SEO myself, as my user profile email address may suggest.

[Mike_Mackin]

Are we talking Overture listing here?

[heini]

No Overture/Espotting.

When a Lycos user types a keyword into the search facility and it matches the keyword purchased by Touch's client, a banner will appear at the top of the search results page advertising their website

From the Touch site

[Shakil]

Absolute con.

I was having a really bad day, and then someone comes running up showing me the email about this.

Lets just say the next 10 minutes was on the phone, and in the end they hung up on me as they did NOT have a clue about what/where/who they were offering.

Had they been closer to my office, I would have actually gone round to give them a piece of my mind.

The best bit was when the manager informed me that as their company was a GoTo approved reseller, they had products which chaps like me did not know about.

Obviously a well knowledgeable outfit.

As has been said b4, send them to me :)

Shak

[colintho]

thanks everybody

[ade_uk]

ive had these pester me aswell, & got the same

"The best bit was when the manager informed me that as their company was a GoTo approved reseller, they had products which chaps like me did not know about. "

[Rank4U]

We actually resell the Touch banners so the offer is genuine. Most of our clients have banners and a few are considering premium links. You can actually buy banners which will appear in Hotbot and AskJeeves as well.

The premium links may offer good value for money if you choose the right keyword. We secured "web hosting" for our hosting business for less than £30 per month.

[DaveN]

one of my clients got the same email when went to thier site they
might want to fix some of those bad and out of date links. ;)

DaveN

[Shakil]

Rank4U, welcome to WebmasterWorld.

So you are resellers for Touch, who are resellers for Lycos, but also sort of approved resellers for overture.

And yes thanks I know I can buy banners, but do I want to. NO

Shak

[uk_dokey]

Lycos seems to be a bit of a damp squid in the UK at the moment I feel that within a few months they will go the way of Altavista. 12 months ago we got about 23 referrals per day from them for a popular keyword nowadays we get 2-4 for the same position. Their results always seem to show far too many US sites even when you search for UK sites this has been an ongoing problem and they don't seem to care too much about the quality of their results. The signs are there and still they do nothing, surfers are voting with their feet (or should I say Mouses). RIP in Lycos UK

[makemetop]

>sort of approved resellers for overture.

No more approved than any other company with an Overture account I am assured!