Re: GoTo Policy Change

From: Michael Martinez <Michael_at_xenite.org>
Date: Tue 27 Mar 2001 13:43:20 -0600

STEVE HARRISON <merlin_at_worthlink.net> WROTE:

>Well, I thought I'd said my piece and was done with
>this topic until reading Mike Golby's
><mikeg_at_laragh.co.za> broadside in defense of GoTo, and
>in derision of most small biz web ventures at large.

[big snip]

I'm sorry to see a couple of people resorting to insults
on this list. That sort of thing happens way too often
in the entertainment discussion lists and forums. This
professional community has a lot riding on the exchange
of information and opinions. Attacking other people's
credibility isn't helping anyone.

>I will certainly be pulling-out my small biz clients
>by way of cancelling their automatic deposit
>functions in GoTo, and when the escrow pool runs dry,
>that's it. No new clients brought aboard in GoTo,
>even if they could afford the nickel minimum. Under
>that sort of management, another gouge or unkind cut
>would probably come around again.

[snip]

>BTW, I, too, once advocated Sprinks as an attractive
>PPC engine, as did Mike Golby in his dyspeptic
>catharsis. But they just recently took an unfriendly
>turn by now requiring a $100 minimum deposit to
>establish an account. Scratch Sprinks.

That's unfortunate, but given how little Sprinks is
doing for my book listings, I can say that it seems
almost inevitable. If Sprinks MUST generate revenues,
they don't seem to be generating them through surf
traffic. So the minimum deposit is roughly equivalent
to a performing registration fee. That's slightly
better than what Yahoo! and Looksmart are charging,
but not much.

We're undoubtedly going to see more attempts to
generate revenues directly from the business community.
That seems inevitable given the inability of Internet
companies (in general -- there may be some exceptions)
to raise more capital investment through the normal
channels, or to go ahead with IPO plans. They need to
pay their bills.

But these search services, in requiring fees for
listing, are stripping away most of the content that
people are looking for. In the end we'll see a sort
of equilibrium reached where as older companies fade
away new enterprises will capture attention.

Will the new enterprises, which will have to offer free
listings to capture databases of significant sizes if
they don't want to pay for them, be able to compete with
the successful search services like Yahoo! and Google?
That's the question.

Somebody, somewhere, will continue to take free listings.
There is simply too much demand for that kind of service.
If the big guys don't take them, they will be shunted
aside by the surfing public who are tired of being
handed commercial listings for books, movies, CDs, and
other products and services they don't want. And that
will make the search engine side of promotion and
marketing even more difficult for the business community.

I would say the current fee-based plans will start to
collapse, implode, or recede by the end of the year. Not
because they don't make money, but because the shrinking
databases of relevant, current links will force the
search services to get some fresh content. Adding all
those nice informational services isn't going to keep
their databases fresh.

But this instability is one of best reasons for why people
should not be relying solely upon search services to
generate traffic for their Web sites. An established
business, especially, has the means to promote its Web
site through all its product literature and advertising.
And we've seen more and more companies doing this, of
course.

No business marketing plan should depend solely on the
search engines. That's simply not a feasible approach.
Some people do succeed in this sort of thing, but for
most people -- businesses and individuals and
organizations -- there are alternatives which, in the
long run, work better.

My domain still gets the majority of its traffic from
other Web sites. More than 3,000 sites link to us. It
may be far more difficult to build up that kind of
referral network now than it was when I started my
domain four years ago, but I still believe that is the
best long-term online promotional strategy for any Web
site.


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Received on Tue Mar 27 2001 - 13:43:20 CST