NONE: Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Search engines are dying
Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Search engines are dying
Jim Sullivan (Jims_at_Outpost.com)
Fri, 14 Nov 1997 11:45:13 -0500
As part of my responsibilities here at Cyberian Outpost (we sell Mac and
PC computer products online) I monitor our performance in the search
engines. It is only part of our overall efforts to drive traffic to our
site but worth the effort to monitor and hopefully maximize our
performance in.
Recently, I have started to notice that pages from directories like
Yahoo are showing up at the top of search results. In Alta Vista for
instance, if you search on the word computers, pages from WebCrawler's
channels come up at the top and there are about 10-12 pages from Yahoo
listed in the top 20-30. I imagine these pages show up because they are
probably text intensive pages that mention the searched for keyword
quite frequently. If we used the word computers on our home page as many
times we might be accused of keyword loading and get thrown out. For the
search engines to be more representative of the URL submissions process
it seems to me that directory/channel pages found by their robots and
spiders should be excluded from the cataloging. Of course, another way
to look at it is that you are getting double exposure for a listing in
those directories/channels.
Overall, reliance on traffic from search engines is dropping for us. We
of course rely heavily on ad banners, sponsorships and exclusive
placements on heavily trafficed sites ( including some search engines ).
We are currently involved with the Starship Troopers movie website and
with some of the contest oriented sites that meet our criteria for
target audience. In addition, I contact our product vendors to make sure
we are listed in their "Where to Buy" sections. Also, we are currently
rolling out our Affiliates Network program and we expect very good
results from this effort.
I think for us, the search engines are less important than they might be
for smaller more niche oriented sites. We have to have a more broad
based promotion effort because we are looking for lots of traffic, but
even a smaller site should not rely on just one traffic producing area.
Until something better comes along the search engines are still an
important asset to be utilized by us all but only as part of a broad
based promotion plan.
Jim Sullivan
Jim Sullivan
Link Master
Cyberian Outpost http://www.outpost.com
860-927-2050 ext. 249
"It's not a bug, it's a feature."
