Re: AltaVista Testing Paid Search Results

From: Ken Dardis <kdardis_at_audiographics.com>
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1999 14:52:10 -0500 (CDT)

Reading virtually all of the posts concerning paid-for
search engine ranking, I get the feeling we're all in for
some abrubt changes in the way we design and market web
sites.

Our 8 keywords, tracked against 19 major engines, succeeded
in the rankings for our three web sites AudioGraphics.com,
RadioGraphics.com and RadioAdInfo.com.

The breakout goes like this:

Ranked #

1 - 20 73.6% of the time.
1 - 10 59.2% "
1 - 5 53.9% "
1 15.7% "

The above, are for keywords typed with the first letter as a
capital letter.

9 of the search engines we track give a different ranking
when using only small letters for keywords. On these, our
rank is as follows:

1 - 20 68.8% of the time
1 - 10 56.9% "
1 - 5 43.% "
1 4.1% "

All of this was obtained through study, design and meta
tags. We use no hidden words or other tricks. You can see
our results at http://www.AudioGraphics.com/se1.htm

Now that the 'pay for placement' monster has rounded the
corner - and you can bet there will be more coming shortly -
what are those of us who follow the search engines' previous
standards to do?

Knowing an 8-cent bid can strip us of the years spent
learning how engines work and incorporating that into our
system of design, are we to simply walk away and tell
clients 'pony up' or you'll never see that single digit
placement?

The rules are changing at the end of the first quarter of
play, and suddenly the bean-counters have gotten control
suggesting ways to upset the fairness of the game.

I'm mostly upset about the unsuspecting User who thinks they
are getting a true representation of sites relevant to their
query. When, in fact, they will be getting sites with the
most dollars to spend at the top of the list. And, contrary
to posts I've seen, my opinion is most Users don't notice
those little notes on GoTo about paying for placement (not
to mention AltaVista not saying anything at all about it).

Marketing has always been about how many dollars you can
spend. But the narcissistic quality of the Internet is
disappearing more rapidly than it did in baseball, and this
makes for a very uneven playing field.

Sad part is, there's nothing any one of us can do except
work the remaining engines until they, too, see the profit
of the placement dollar.

Is it time for government regulation of the Internet?

Maybe not. But someone needs to have the power to squash
this trend before it completely overtakes the common sense
logic the Internet was supposed to be built on.

Ken Dardis
President
Audio Graphics, Inc.
Cleveland, Ohio
440-247-1928



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Received on Wed Apr 21 1999 - 15:55:29 CDT