The Other Search Engines

**dvduval** · 07-16-2002, 09:49 AM

I don't really like PPCs but sometimes it's necessary to participate. Overture is the only one that provides to large Search Engines. The others run affiliate programs that can attract hits that really aren't worth the money. Being the open-minded person that I am (haha), I'd love to see if anyone might disagree and say that there truly are other worthwhile PPCs.

**Hope** · 07-16-2002, 10:18 AM

Hi David,

I will take you up on your challenge. Let me first state that I really don't care for PPC engines either. I don't like the idea of having to outbid the folks who have money.

Findwhat is the second largest PPC out there. They provide quality leads just like Overture. Their distribution network includes Search.com, Dogpile, Go2Net, Thinkersgroup.com (WAP) and Infospace.

They are not as big as Overture, but they are good at driving quality traffic. The price on most bids are lower, but so is the amount of traffic.

I think combining the two PPC will give a good campaign if you have the money to do so.

Heidi

**dvduval** · 07-16-2002, 07:10 PM

Heidi,

I do agree that FindWhat or Sprinks or Ah-ha might be the second or third place PPCs but please consider this:

Here is some info from my server logs for search engine referals on 1 site. Out of the 4 sites I manage, the results are pretty consistent:
1 Yahoo 40.73%
2 Google 18.5%
3 Microsoft Network 18.46%
4 AOL NetFind 10.8%
5 AltaVista 4.22%
6 Lycos 1.74%
7 Ask Jeeves 1.26%
8 DirectHit 1.16%
9 dogpile 1.12%
10 Look Smart 1.07%
11 metacrawler 0.5%
12 CompuServe 0.13%
13 MegaSpider 0.11%
14 Searchalot 0.04%
15 About.com 0.04%
16 Goo 0.02%
17 InfoSpace 0.02

In this example, the FindWhat related engines are generating 1.5% of traffic max, not to mention that some of those results surely do not come from FindWhat. The biggest generator in the example above was Dogpile. And where do the top 10 results on Dogpile come from? Overture.

If there truly is a good PPC out there, I'd love to find it, but I don't believe FindWhat has much to offer. I really wish they did, because I think some competition would be healthy for the buyer.

One PPC I didn't mention was the Google AdWords program. Possibly that would be my second PPC choice.

**DaveTodd** · 07-31-2002, 10:11 AM

despite all the attention pay per click search engines achieve, the fact remains that the best way to get traffic, as your logs prove, is being listed in google and yahoo.

if you manage good rankings in these 2 places, then traffic will come your way, provided you've targetted the right keywords.

second to this, getting listed in directories such as ODP are vital. do these two things, and traffic will come. forget PPC, unless you have the money to get an amazing keyword, only then will you ever begin to benefit from them. leave PPC to the well-off, concentrate on getting a high volume of traffic to your site

**kenetik** · 08-11-2002, 12:17 AM

DaveTodd, do you have any reccommendations for me? I want my site listed on google and yahoo and I want to keep a decent ranking (top 50) but the thing is, its webhosting.

a very popular search, eh!

**hostingplex** · 08-11-2002, 10:53 AM

Overture is a killer on the bidding. A killer.

We work with Findwhat very closely with our search affiliate program and Error 404 program. Let me tell you something. Findwhat's system is so sensitive. Your hits are very good quality, they don't any garbage to go through, if its garbage, it goes through, but you aren't billed for it.

Findwhat is a good secondary if you can't afford Overture's $6 per click