SiteMatch - Totally confused.

ok am I right or wrong on this?

[sincraft]

Ok, so if I understand after reading that long yahoo response to webmasterworld:

Sitematch is pretty much only useful if your site is new? Seems, it immediately indexes your website and refreshes it every 48 hours. Allowing you to optimize your website and play around till you get the ranking you like (say within the first 2 pages). But when a person clicks on your link, you pay a fee (either .15 or .30) until your account reaches $0.
Then what? do they nix your links?
I'm still totally confused about this!
Someone please help me understand this.
At first, it seemed like a non service. Then, I put the pieces together and realized that would help me get immediate ranking - and allow me to tweak things out to see how I can push my ranking up higher than my competition.

Does this sound about right? Please advise! If this is the case, then why not just optimize, then remove the cash from the account and BAM instant front page. At least until it starts to faulter, then I could readd $ and re-tweak.

S

[soapystar]

Then what? do they nix your links?

think of it as two indexes in one....with sitematch sitting on top of the free index...seperate crawls....when your sitematch pauses/stops your freee listing remains in its natural position in the serps...assuming you have a free listing..thats the theory anyway...

now the question is does sitematch buy you better listings or just better crawling?.....and are those actually two different things!

[sincraft]

Ok, I've researched this and done some 'crawling' of my own. I honestly think that this is a rather under-handed scheme of the Search Engine companies to gather more $$$ for what was originally (long long ago in a galaxy far far away) supposed to be a tech geek helping another tech geek out by creating these engines. That said, we all want to put food on the table. Otherwise, I wouldn't be wasting my time posting this or looking this info up.
SO - that said, I did a little research and without breaking too many forums rules I CAN tell you this.

-SiteMatch DOES do a seperate crawl for it's clients. It does this every 48 hours. It does this independent of the free crawls.
What does this mean to you? What purpose would it serve you if you already have links in the index? Well, first and most important - it allows you to make changes and SEE THE RESULTS VERY QUICKLY in comparison and contrast to your competition and your techniques used for SEO.
Next - If you just opened a store, and don't want to wait for 3 months to be crawl and indexed, this is invaluable. Especially if you were under the notion by some 'not so ethical web devs out there' that your store was going to start making big money the second it was released. It gets you indexed fast, and it allows you to make changes to get up there in the rankings. Put $20 in your account, and then - you can see how well you are doing. If at that time, you don't want to spend more money as the ROI isn't worth it, AT THE VERY LEAST you get to figure out exactly where you MIGHT be when it comes time for the free crawl.
What SiteMatch DOESN'T do: It doesn't guarantee page ranking. It Doesn't guarantee page views. It DOES NOT put free listings UNDER paid listings. At least, that is what many many people have said.

All in all, I think it is an absolute critical neccessity for the new website, especially a Commerce site. It allows you to optimize your techniques very quickly - and down the road, compare the results to your 'free listings'. Only time will tell if people feel the free listings are getting the same priority over the paid once they stop their paid inclusions.
If however, your ROI is worth it - then let it ride. If not, then at least you learned a valuable lesson.

I think SiteMatch, once understood what it does, will basically eliminate many SEO companies out there that claim to produce better page rankings, but don't guarantee a thing. This will open up new opportunities for tech geeks to make a few $$$ in helping a company optmize their page rankings..

However - will this produce a Micromanagement 'heck' as we all scramble to the top? Only time will tell.

S

[randle]

will basically eliminate many SEO companies out there that claim to produce better page rankings, but don't guarantee a thing.

Nothing will ever change people making claims that don’t ring true. Snake oil salesman have been around since the dawn of time and SiteMatch sure won’t run them out of the internet.

I don’t think your going to get much benefit out of SiteMatch from an SEO perspective, and certainly I don’t think Yahoo ever touted you would. I suppose if you made enough changes and your site was spidered every 48 hours, the changes would be picked up and cached quicker and that might help.

Yahoo does a pretty good job of regular spidering so it’s not like you need SiteMatch to help boost that. However, if your site had thousands of pages, and the titles on those pages had say prices that were changed frequently then it would probably make sense. You want that title to show a changed price, or product you have. That’s the only benefit of it we could ever think of.

[soapystar]

if fresh content gets an algo boost and only sitematch sites get a fresh boost every 48 hours (if u make changes for each spider)..does that amount to buying a better ranking?

[mastervisa]

Reminds me of the old InkPFI days. I paid $25 annualy per domain to be included in the Ink search results. I got spidered every 48 hours, so I could make changes etc. and see the results quickly. If I was dropped from the index for some reason, I would be reincluded automatically. There was no guarantee that I would be at the top, just that I was included in the Ink results. Then Y bought Ink, stopped the program, tossed it over to Overture, renamed it Sitematch, told me I had to convert over, increased the cost to $49 and slapped .30 a click on it (in my line of business anyway) Since I was getting over 500 hits a day from Y from just one site, cost was not, and is not, feasible for me.

[sincraft]

SoapyStar - My thoughts exactly. However, if you are COMPLETELY new on the Internet, this is invaluable. As your website, isn't up or going to be up for a long long time. If you sell tings, this is too long.

And Yes, a fresh 48 hour allowing you to tweak SEO is in essence buying page ranking. But to keep from seeming 'unethical' you still have to compete with the free spiders. Not vey hard if you are on a 48 hour turnaround right?

As to whomever claimed Yahoo does a good job of spidering - I disagree. The normal E-commerce site doesn't get crawler anywhere near as much as a 'known' site with changing content and many many pages of interesting 'good' content. It think you need to keep in mind I am talking about an Ecommerce site, not a info site.
I have an article dated back to 2000 showing the approximate crawl times of yahoo/google/ etc. But I'm sure it's outdated. I looks like with yahoo it's every two weeks.
And from what I understand: putting a rebot revist tag of 48 hours is totally ignored, or if not ignored by some bots could actually hurt your site if you aren't constantly updated a good portion of your website. True? I don't know. That's what these forums are here for. :)

As for SnailOilSalesmen (i love that term btw!) - yea there are many out there. I was just on a forum where a guy is telling people that for $20 a month they can get a good ecommerce site including hosting as long as they pay 2 years in advance. The sites run SLOW, he doesn't tell you that you still have to pay for things like merchant accounts etc, and he advertises Search Engine Submittal (5 minute job) as the equivilant to Search Engine Optimization (never ending job)

hehe

S

[sincraft]

OH btw, on that snakeoil salesmen thing...all their menus (ALL of them) are in java. hhehe.

Yea MASTERVISA - That's the one! It's exactly the same thing, and like you said..you are getting the hits now because you are already there as a 'free' listing so why pay? My thoughts exactly. But remmeber, if you paid your years dues of $49, you could always readd a couple bucks in there just to tweak things out or to be reincluded if you drop off the face of the planet for some reason for a bit. I think it's worth it personally.. :)

S

[martinibuster]

>>>I have an article dated back to 2000 showing the approximate crawl times of yahoo/google/

I doubt you have that article. Yahoo didn't have a crawler in 2000.

[mastervisa]

actually sincraft, the 4 sites I had with INK/PFI were dropped from Y in July, 04. All banned until December when my index pages reappeared but I come up in no serps on Y except when searching for www.mydomain.com, or exact title. This includes my corporate site, as it has been listed in the Y Directory since 1998. I get no "free" hits from Y. I do get hits, but I have to put cash in my Overture account of course, then I'm getting scraps. Course you can get .10 scraps with Overture, and that beats .30 with Sitematch. I have no problem with any other SE serps. And haven't had for 5 1/2 years. (Except for the Florida update, but I rose like a phoenix from the ashes in March!)