Re: Search engine promotions

From: Robert J. Woodhead <trebor_at_animeigo.com>
Date: Thu 22 Feb 2001 14:43:13 -0600

ROB FRANKEL <rob_at_robfrankel.com> WROTE:

>Paying for placement, in my view, opens the doors for
>fraud and imbalance. There's nothing to prevent
>ranking from becoming a "who can pay most for top
>placement", which means anyone can buy their way to
>the top.

There is a wonderful expression that sums up why
pay per click works:

        "Money talks, Bullsh*t walks"

>If you extend that scenario, it's only a matter of time
>until the big money buys whatever they can, rendering
>the entire search engine useless and ultimately, a
>failure.

Except that it's self-correcting. Sure, a big company could
place top bids on a bunch of irrelevant keywords (assuming
Goto would let them). They'd get a lot of traffic -- traffic
that would generate LITTLE or NO income for them. Pretty
soon they'd either figure out they were wasting their money
(and reduce/cancel t he bids) or become a new Hall of Fame
Inductee over at F*ckedCompany.com; either way, problem
solved.

Furthermore, the bid amounts give valuable feedback to the
searcher about how valuable a click is to the advertiser
(and indirectly, how expensive his or her product is). If
someone's paying $1.00 a click then you have to figure
their marketing overheads are high -- and thus their
product must be expensive. Those on a budget usually scan
down the listings.

I'd much rather pay goto.com for a cost-effective ranking
than spend my time (which = $$$) playing positioning games.
It's cheaper and more reliable.
--

==================================================
Robert Woodhead, CEO, AnimEigo http://www.animeigo.com/
==================================================
http://selfpromotion.com/ The Net's only URL registration
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Received on Thu Feb 22 2001 - 14:43:13 CST