Re: AltaVista Testing Paid Search Results

From: Akilesh Rajan <shivohum_at_bigfoot.com>
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 14:02:40 -0500 (CDT)

RICHARD HOY STATED:
> It appears that Altavista is testing the pay-per-click model
> developed by Goto.com.
> Opinions anyone? I have at least one:
>
> If I were a search engine optimization company, I'd be
> worried. If this catches on, no one will need their services
> anymore.
>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I think it's an incredibly uninformed thing for Altavista to
do. Search engines are the heart of the web. Ever wonder why
Yahoo! consistently stays on top of the search engine war?
Because, despite its comparatively small database (compared
to, say, Altavista) and its crude technology, it is almost
always relevant. The moment when any search engine
sacrifices the highest possible relevancy--currently it's
often pretty low no matter which search engine you visit--to
commercialism, it has doomed itself to a niche player.

Let's take a look at goto.com. Search for something as
simple as "Microsoft Office" and you will find load after
load of irrelevant offers from various companies. Input the
identical phrase into top-notch search engine Google, which
puts relevancy first, and the very first listing is the most
pertinent: www.microsoft.com/office. Ditto for Metacrawler,
which aggregates and returns the results of several popular
search engines.

Try another search. Let's assume you were looking for the
demo of the popular game, Baldur's gate. While entering
"download Baldur's Gate demo" yields dozens of top-level
site results on Goto.com, both Google on its second link and
Metacrawler on its first, take you to a direct download.
Goto.com comes close to Google and Metacrawler on some
searches, but overall its inferiority (and I've tried dozens
of other searches with these engines over the months) is
clear. And surfers, merciless breed that they are--the
competition is just a click away--don't respect second-best.

That's why I don't use goto.com. I hope Altavista doesn't
come to occupy the same position in my mind.

Akilesh Rajan
shivohum_at_nobletree.com


========================================================================
------------------------------------------------------------------------
       This week's Online Advertising Discussion List sponsors:
                  Iconocast's WebAttack and FlyCast

                  JUST SAY NO TO BORING CONFERENCES!
  Register today for Web Attack!-The Ultimate Internet Marketing Event
      June 17-18, San Francisco http://www.iconocast.com/webattack/

                                ---
WEB ADVERTISING THAT MAKES YOU A HERO. Our Web experts optimize your
buy across 780 sites. All for what you'd normally pay for placement on
one. Call it superhuman. http://WWW.FLYCAST.COM/OA

------------------------------------------------------------------------
========================================================================
Online Advertising Discussion List To Unsubscribe send UNSUBSCRIBE
http://www.o-a.com/ to online-ads-request@o-a.com



Received on Mon Apr 19 1999 - 15:06:27 CDT