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Not only is each page of the searches contain lower GoTo rankings, but the descriptions are spiderd from the website.
I must aplaud Yahoo for the part of having more than just the top 5 listed. Very smart on their part. I think a secong page listing on yahoo for the price of a #10 on Oveture is a great deal.
(edited by: NFFC at 12:53 pm (gmt) on Nov. 16, 2001)
This won't work because the URL Overture uses contains a unique ID which changes for each search. Copying the URL will cause it to use the old search ID and won't count the click twice.
To fix this you would have to initiate a new search each time, then find the url. But, of course, Overture would spot this fraud very quickly, would re-credit your competitor for the loss and immediately ban your own site.
Ah well, the weekend's upon us, it's about 30 degrees out, the beach beckons, and the second test is under way. South Africa's 94/2 at lunch after losing Kirsten and Kallis to Srinath.
Should be an interesting five days.
We'll see what terrors Yahoo! holds for us Monday. Whatever they are, I'm sure they don't spell the end of Search.
Hmmm...? :)
Why didn't I think of anonymizing it? No answers please!
Hmm... further testing...
The goto stuff only shows up on some searches. Search #1 (a rather long, specific query) returned no goto listings. Search #2 (Viagra) returned a whole bunch of cr@p at the top of the page, including "sponsored" listings...
The one directory drill down I did also returned no goto listings...
All this is from Alaska.
Good spot... I missed that as well. They've really messed this up... on popular items it's TWO screens down before you actually hit the actual web sites!
This really is desperation by Yahoo. It never ceases to amaze how little businesses learn from history. The corporate graveyard is full of firms that have contaminated their core products for short term cash grab.
Like many others I paid for a Looksmart listing when they first offered the paid plan. Later on down the road, they started offering the "featured listings" which in my opinion is nothing less than a betrayal of those who participated in the pay for inclusion programme to begin with.
Then the majority of the SE's started to follow suit by showing "featured listings" at the top of their pages ... and now Yahoo sells their soul less than 3 months after I decide to pay to have my site listed and was just about to pay to have 2 more pages submitted. There is NO customer loyalty and they are all selling out the only thing which gave them value in the first place ... "relatively" uncorrupted search results!
I will not be paying anyone another dime for a very long time unless I can get some assurances that they will only be charging for inclusion and/or more frequent spidering. A receipt stating what I have paid for would be nice too!
I sincerely hope this scheme backfires in Yahoo's face just as my trust that I was paying for inclusion within the directory and that placement could not be bought has now backfired in mine!!!
If I could get away with what I want to say to both LookSmart and Yahoo on this forum ... the air would be a very dark blue! To h*ll with both of you!
I hope you are being well compensated by Overture, because I think a lot of people who may have been considering a submission to Yahoo will either go direct to the PPC programmes (since they can buy top billing) or wait until the dust settles in April to see what happens next. Why on earth would anyone pay for a listing in Yahoo when the very best they can hope for is a number 4 placement?
Its a long time between now and April and a lot is bound to happen in the SE market during that time frame. I won't be giving Yahoo a cent! What's next, when people stop forking over the $300.00 for inclusion, will they start listing the top 10 PPC results, then the top 20 ... to buoy their income before going the way of Excite and others already on the slippery slope to SE/Directory heaven?
What sort of marketing *spin* will they come up with to sell that load of cr*p?
Yes, for a long time, I felt that getting into Yahoo! would be worth almost any one-time fee they might charge... I was also planning on opening a business as a Yahoo Store. Now that the real depths of their revenue desperation have been made quite clear, and they've totally sold out all the folks who willingly coughed up first $199 and then $299 for a supposedly somewhat objectively ranked listing, not only will I not be paying for any directory listings, I will be revising my business plans.
I'm certainly not paying $100/month for Y! Store hosting, PLUS $299 for a directory listing, just to watch Goto clients outrank me by default, and have the entire behemoth go belly up, sending me scrambling for another hosting solution when Yahoo!'s eventual buyers decide that the Yahoo Store system isn't worth preserving. The traffic available through both avenues may be nice, but the automatically demoted rankings and long-term uncertainty isn't worth it.
SE/Directory heaven
For what it's worth, if there is an SE afterlife, I doubt the sell-outs are headed to heaven... ;)
I feel ripped off, like everyone else who has shelled out $299 recently. The only solace I take is that Yahoo will not benefit (see above). The cash-grab song has been sung before... always by those sinking fast and selling their souls before they reach the bottom.
The Overture program needs to give more flexibilty to its client base.
An interesting exercise to all involved here would be to monitor the traffic pulling effect that these paid listings have had on your regular hard earned places that appear in the search results
Many of the "formula" driven listings in Altavista, Lycos, Hotbot, Fast, AOL, Msn, Yahoo!... have remained in the same places. Pick some of your good ones which held their own for awhile and check out the referral traffic that these listings pulled BEFORE and AFTER sponsored listings appeared.
Has anyone got a timeline regarding when Goto.com's paid listings started appearing at the various engines! this would be very useful
ADDED for those in the United Kingdom [iredge.com]
(edited by: Mike_Mackin at 4:04 pm (gmt) on Nov. 19, 2001)
That will be very useful.
Before research, my gut feel is that the PPC inclusions have not had as much of an impact as many feel in this thread.
Our traffic has been on the increase as well as the number of qualified enquiries coming through and we have not spent a cent at Goto.com.. yet!
Maccas posted:
"Nothing here in NZ either, try this Liane"
I tried it and I discover that Yahoo is really using Overture listings as everyone knows but what is that anonymizer, could anyone explain me better?
Thanks
wolfy
"The Overture listings are also only appearing at Yahoo.com and also only to those who visit the site from the US and Canada."
from
Yahoo Expands Paid Placement Listings nov.20 2001
Danny Sullivan
