Re: AltaVista Testing Paid Search

From: Mark Brownlow <mark_at_sciencekomm.at>
Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 16:07:29 -0500 (CDT)

David Yancey in Issue 54 has, I think, begun to draw out
some of the wider implications of AV paid listings.

The "free" nature of the net is very pervasive, and positive
from a general perspective, but things are changing. In my
part of the web (scientific publishing), many sites are now
charging for information services and article access on a
pay-per-view or subscription basis. Nevertheless, the "free"
concept still has a greater subconscious impact on our
response to commercial developments than we perhaps realise.

Alta Vista and GoTo are not socialist governments, they are
businesses and ultimately are looking to turn a profit. Time
will tell if their revenue models actually work, but we
can't expect them to meet our expectations of unbiased,
relevant search results *if* that also means lower profit
for them (people and engines will differ in how they see
this relationship between customer satisfaction and profit).
Neither site disguises their approach and if you don't like
it, vote with your mouse. Ultimately the
consumer/competition will determine the success/failure of
their approach and there is no shortage of "fairer"
alternatives. And let's remember that nobody can really say
what relevant is anyway - you're looking for thanksgiving
recipes and I'm looking for hotels in Istanbul, but we both
entered the search term "Turkey".

More important is David Yancey's point that internet users
are segmenting. The maxim has always been, make sure your
site has a listing or ad at the top 7 search engines and
maybe a couple of specialist directories. We are moving into
an environment where we have to be much more sophisticated
than that. People have predicted consolidation, but the
reverse has happened - more and more sites/services to help
you find your way around the net, often catering to
specialist groups, whether busy business professionals,
botanists or beetle owners.

While the biggies will always be important because of the
continual increase in total user and new user volume,
numerous specialist sites and services will become more and
more interesting for advertising and site promotion if you
want to reach a targeted and ecommerce-friendly audience. I
already get more visitors from one specialist medical
directory listing than from my 3 Yahoo category listings.

Just when you think you've got it cracked, the damn
goalposts move again.

Mark Brownlow
science.komm
http://www.sciencekomm.at/

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Received on Wed May 12 1999 - 16:26:15 CDT