Re: GoTo Policy Change

From: Mike Golby <mikeg_at_laragh.co.za>
Date: Wed 21 Mar 2001 12:24:54 -0600

PATRICK CARLSON <patrickcarlson_at_cfl.rr.com> WROTE:

>What online business would expend 50% of it's time on
>$.01 click throughs? Goto as a publisher must
>consider the margins on this. You can deal with it
>or take the Time to develop an effective affiliate
>program or develop an effective non-bidded search strategy.

I agree. The anger, bewilderment, and sense of betrayal
expressed by GoTo's supporters is not surprising given
the engine's lack of prior notice of a relatively high
baseline fee. However, GoTo must have done their homework
on this one, factored in their likely losses, balanced
it against the revenue they do and now expect to generate
and share with their myriad partners, and decided that
it was up to them as a dotcom to initiate their own
'shakeout' of freeloaders and hypocrites - for that is
what people who buy themselves position for as little
as $0.01 are. What other mass medium will give you
such a deal? None.

The upshot is that GoTo's model works right now because
so many support the notion of paying for position. Most
of you choose to do so by bidding only $0.01. Not quite
'free', but not a long way from it. Problem is, you want
your bread buttered on both sides and it just doesn't
work that way. You've been hooked by good marketing and
now you're all wriggling like freshly caught fish on
their way to being gutted. There are many paying far
more than $0.05 and, for this reason, I certainly don't
see GoTo bemoaning the loss of a squalling bunch of
two-faced penny pinchers (I don't mean to be rude.
Bluntness, though, sometimes drives home the point best).

It has also become apparent that, of all the engines
using Inktomi for secondary results, GoTo is the engine
most able to manipulate that database to suit its ends.
Having featured extremely well in the Inktomi results,
I've not given GoTo a red cent and I now find them
dropping my site from all results - in contrast to
other Inktomi partners. Aggressive marketing? Join
us or lose us? I don't know. I'll figure it out. What
I do know is that GoTo embraces the notion that there
will always be marketers willing to part with money to
climb the rankings. Small-timers stomping away in
umbrage will reduce its administration costs and, by
creating a mass migration of small bidders to Sprinks,
FindWhat et al, it will transfer the problem of
cheapskates to them. Now that Sprinks is partnering
Dogpile and Mamma, I see it as the most attractive
traffic snagger on the PPC block for all those willing
to part with only $0.01 per click through.

My ratings on Sprinks and other PPCs stand to take a
beating come the flood of enraged penny-pinchers. The
only way to prevent that happening is either for me to
start bidding or for low-budget marketers to play the
game as they all say (squeal?) it should be done, i.e.,
fairly. Optimize your sites and learn to live with the
rankings given you. Otherwise, you perpetuate the
problem by paying and, within a few months, you will
give myriad PPCs smaller than GoTo fair reason to
impose a relatively high low-end bid rate. In short,
you guys bidding $0.01 are going to kill those of us
who continue to strive for top rankings without
shelling out money left, right, and everywhere else.
In the medium to long term, you are - by migrating to
the other PPCs - supporting the aims and objectives of
every carpetbagging directory or engine seeking to
extort money from the people on whose support their
existence depends. These include the 'sponsored
listings', guaranteed crawling, and Pay-to-Play
models. Don't participate. Cancel your accounts. Let
GoTo, LookSmart and all the other moneygrubbers fight
it out. Left to themselves, they will destroy each other.

Will this happen? Will you lowrent bidders play it fair
and square without complaint? I doubt it... but one can
always dream :-).

Mike Golby
Laragh Courseware
http://www.laragh.com
"e-Learning Matters"



Received on Wed Mar 21 2001 - 12:24:54 CST