>Mark Welch said: I recently spent some money at one of
>the other second-tier "pay-per-click" search engines,
>to test whether it might be productive to use
>PPC systems other than Overture and Google.
I run a search engine marketing business and only stick
with promoting to the top search engines in order to
drive the most traffic. The small guys don't get enough
traffic, and until they can prove they have a worthwhile
audience I don't mess with them.
I hadn't seen the issue here of Internet traffic
"hijacking" through the use of programs like Ezula's Top
Text. I'm sure this must have been covered before, but
now seems like a good time to be bringing it up. If you
aren't familiar with this, I'm sure you remember
Microsoft's effort to market Smart Tags-the ability to
provide links to advertiser's sites through specific
keywords on ANY site.
Well, this is still an issue as some very popular
companies have chosen to employ this unethical method of
driving traffic. Another reason to evaluate the
employment of needy online companies (in this case,
small PPC search
engines).
Read about the PPC company ePilot's decision to can Ezula
here:
http://scumware.com/hall1a.html
How Ezula's TopText Works: http://www.scumware.com/wm2.html
http://dmoz.org/Society/Issues/Business/Allegedly_Unethical_Firms/Ezula/
There's plenty of information out there on all kinds of
forums--affiliate marketing, search engines and the like
about the use of this technology, and the bad press the
companies are getting for using it. Let's face it, it's
not the quick dollar we should be concerned with, it's
the long-term reputation of our clients (and ourselves).
Tina Reed
MarketNet Consulting
http://marketnetconsulting.com
Received on Fri Apr 12 2002 - 16:07:38 CDT
