GoTo extends minimum bid grandfather period

[rcjordan]

Excerpt from email:

On March 1, 2001, we announced pricing changes of a new minimum bid of 5 cents and a minimum monthly spend of $20. In an effort to minimize the impact of these changes on our existing advertisers, we grandfathered all listings and accounts created prior to March 1st.

With the holiday season approaching, we have decided to extend the grandfather period until further notice. Should we decide to end the grandfather period, we will announce it 30 days in advance.

This means that all of your grandfathered listings will be exempt from the 5-cent minimum and all of your grandfathered accounts will be exempt from the $20 minimum monthly spend.

[litmania]

It's good news, because we, like many people here, have many listings at one cent per click.

I hope the extension will last as long as my grandfather's age...

[tigger]

what a good way to end the day with Goto

[rcjordan]

I think GoTo has made a wise decision, things are going their way, at least when compared to the other SE monetization schemes. I'd also sit tight on the 'old business' and concentrate on the new, letting attrition take care of the transition.

[legster]

I was VERY happy to get this email today extending my penny clicks for much longer. :)

Then I got a phone call from Goto. They wanted me to spend TONS of money to get in the top 3 listings. My budget on Goto is currently $500 per month, and he was looking for a minimum of $5k per month. Ouch! :/

[chiyo]

Crazy.. its a good policy from Go To, but our 1c to 3c bids are already losing the preminum listings, which is all we are interested in (AV etc) as we are not a shopping site.

Most of the sites that have paid 5c to overbid us are so general (one company bidding on many terms to the same url), or basically affiliate sites. Apart from our own competitiveness, the database in our specialist topic areas has relevancy going South very fast. In fact the first 3 listings are so general as to be irrelevant.

This may well be related to Legster's posting above. Clearly it is in GoTo's interest to have a few big clients than thousands of small ones. On the downside, I think it may be creating big problems in rlevance. They have to find a happy medium and I think that is what the granfather extension is all about.. For if a SE loses its relevance, it loses its raison detre. There is alreasy pressure on the majors to imporve their relevance, and if they can find other revenue streams, GoTo may be the first to go.

Great to know we dont have to spend 25 a month for a specialist site that attracts much less values of clicks per month though.